All the Pieces of You
by JohnGreenGirl
Summary: A sequel to my story Windward Circle. Focuses on Sodapop and Brooklyn dealing with life after Soda's time spent fighting in the Vietnam War. [HIATUS]
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

* * *

Last words are a funny thing. I'll bet you never gave much thought to what you'll say right before you die. No one does, I'd reckon. But when the time comes for someone you love…last words will stick with you. They become a part of the living left behind.

Elvis Presley's last words were "Okay, I won't."

John F. Kennedy said, "You certainly can't," just before his death.

Marilyn Monroe's last sentence was "Say goodbye to Pat, say goodbye to the president, and say goodbye to yourself, because you're a nice guy."

Only the famous people get to have famous last words.

More famous to myself and my friends were the last words of Johnny Cade and Dallas Winston. Before dying, Johnny said, "Stay gold, Ponyboy." We all knew in the back of our minds that Johnny would die. He didn't die as suddenly as Elvis, or JFK, or Marilyn. He wasn't there one moment and gone the next.

But Dally was. When the bullets tore into his chest, Dallas simply said my name.

* * *

 **A/N:** If you stumble upon this fic of mine (one of the first I ever wrote!), please be aware I am editing/re-writing it. There is a sequel that goes along with it, _All the Pieces of You_ that I have struggled with writing because the source material for it (this fic) is vastly different than my current writing style. So I am editing this one to fit how I write now in the hopes that it will help me get all the ideas I have in my head for _All the Pieces of You_ onto paper. _5/2/2019._


	2. Chapter One

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

"You're a money hoarder," my dad told me one day as I slipped the money from a new check among the rest in the safe.

"It's a good thing nobody thinks there's anything worth stealing in this neighborhood."

"Even if someone bothered to rob us, I don't think they would bother with this grouchy thing." The safe was hard to open. You had to line the numbers for the combination up just right, and even then it was resistant to open.

My dad knew the combination to the safe. Sometimes, tucked in among the twenty dollar bills the bank cashed Soda's checks in, I would find a ten or five I hadn't put there.

He was right, though. I was being a hoarder, saving money for two years. At least it was in a safe and not a coffee can, right? I'm not sure why I kept it in my dad's house rather than the bank. I think having it where I could see it and count it helped it feel more real.

Even two years out, I was getting letters from Soda. They weren't always regular—sometimes five or six would come at once, dated weeks or even months ago. With the war advancing, the post was falling behind.

Somehow, due to the fallen behind mail, I missed a letter not from Soda, but from the U.S. Army themselves. This letter, which would come two weeks after the fact, stated Soda was being honorably discharged after risking his life to save some other soldiers, getting an injury making him unfit for combat in the process.

The letter only called it 'an injury'.

It was September 23rd, 1967 when Soda came home to Tulsa. Since I hadn't gotten the letter saying he was coming home, mea and Darry were completely unprepared.

Darry went to work at his contracting job—now an overseer and being trained to overtake the company rather than a laborer. I went to work at the dentist office and spent my morning rolling my eyes at Two-Bit, who suddenly had a cavity after developing a crush on one of the nurses.

"Is this how you spend your time now, you overgrown hood?" I had teased Two-Bit as he filled out paperwork I would have file.

"And how, pray tell, do you spend your time, Brookie?" Even though he was looking at the papers, I saw one of his eyebrows raise up.

"Well, I watched a marathon of _Leave it to Beaver_ last night… so I would say I spend it productively."

"Scan-da-lous," Two-Bit joked, breaking the word into parts. "I'm gonna have to find my way to church after that sinful confession."

After work, I walked home on the same route that I always took. My walk home took me by the old DX station that Steve and Soda used to work at. Every time I walked by, I was a little smug about the fact that the DX didn't get the same kind of business it had when Soda and Steve were there.

It had all the makings of a perfectly normal day.

Dad was gone, so I was alone in the house. I pulled a popsicle out of the icebox and was walking to the living room when there was a knock on the door. I was confused, nobody ever really knocked.

Aunt Dolly and Esteban just walked in. Dad had a key. The Curtis house was _still_ the place we all met to hang out. So the knock on the door was out of the ordinary for me, to say the least.

 _What the heck_ , I remembered thinking as I walked to the door. The popsicle was still in my hand when I turned the doorknob.

When I opened the door, it was to a smiling face I hadn't seen in two years.

His hair was shorter, but it was still golden and his eyes were still a warm, dancing brown. He had gotten taller and broader, a build similar to Darry's whereas before he had been more similar to Ponyboy. But he was still Sodapop.

Somehow the popsicle left my hand. I threw it, actually, I just didn't realize I had in all of my excitement. I needed my hands anyway, so I could throw my arms around him.

"Soda!" What I hadn't noticed was the cane in his left hand, but I did notice the way he had to right himself as he wrapped his free arm around my waist.

"Whoa, careful, Brooklyn." He steadied both of us before ducking his head to kiss me. It all felt like a dream, and I remembered being a little scared that I would wake up at any minute.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him, looking over him again. I took in his army uniform and finally noticed the cane in his hand and the limp in his step as he came into my dad's house.

"What happened?" He hadn't even had time to answer my first question. My eyebrows knitted together as I looked up at him.

"Why's there a melting popsicle on your couch?" Soda asked, an amused smile on his face before answering me. I had forgotten about the popsicle. I grabbed it from the couch and rushed to the kitchen to throw it away while Soda laughed at me.

When I got back, Soda was still standing in the middle of the living room, smiling at me.

"I'm so happy to see you, Brookie." He reached a hand out and smoothed it over my hair. Just a few months ago, I had cut it a lot shorter than it had been before. Soda twirled a shorter strand around his finger. I was happy to see him, too, of course, but I wanted to know what had happened and why he was here.

I took his hand and led him to the part of the couch _not_ wet from melted grape popsicle. I noticed he hesitated for just a second before sitting down.

"So what happened?" I asked, watching him set his cane against the coffee table.

"You ask a lot of questions. It's almost like we haven't seen each other in two years." He leaned in and kissed me again, long and slow and sweet.

When he pulled away, Soda looked a little sad. He kept his hand on my cheeks for a few moments and stroked it with his thumb.

"You ready for this?" He asked. I nodded, but I wasn't sure what I was agreeing to. Soda bent over and began to roll up his left pant leg. At first it looked normal, just his combat boot. But as he rolled it up higher, I realized what was wrong.

" _Soda!_ " I nearly shouted, reaching a hand out to touch the cool metal and plastic where his leg should have been. " _What happened?_ "

It wasn't his whole leg. I finished rolling up his pant leg, to check. He still had his left thigh and knee, and a little bit of his calf, but for the most part his calf and left foot had been replaced with something else.

"Soda…" I said again, running my hand over the warm skin of his knee and down to where it turned to cold material.

"Hey, it's okay," he said, picking up my hand. "I don't even remember it happnenin', Brookie. Steve had to fill me in later."

I was still looking at the fake leg. I could feel tears burning behind my eyes, and they rolled down my cheeks before I could blink them away.

"Hey, Brookie, c'mere." Soda pulled me onto his lap. I wrapped my arms around him and laid my head on his shoulder.

Once it started, I couldn't seem to stop. It probably took a good ten minutes for me to calm down enough to pick up my head and look at him again.

"Listen, I don't even care about losin' my leg. Hell, I'd give the other one, too, if it meant I got to come home to you two years early." I tried to smile for him, because I knew he was trying to cheer me up.

He kissed me on my forehead.

"I guess I beat the letter they were supposed to send, huh? Well, I lost the leg tryin' to save Steve. Sometimes the ground is weird over there, and it's worse than mud. It sucks you down into it. I went to get Steve and I stepped on a stupid landmine. But just the edge of it, that's why I only lost part of my leg and not the whole thing."

"Did it hurt?" I asked after a long pause. I was so happy to see Soda, but at the same time my heart was breaking that he had come back hurt.

"I reckon it did, but I don't really remember it. Steve ended up saving me after I tried to save him. He got out okay, though. I'm happy about that."

I sighed a sigh that came from somewhere so deep in my body that I was tired by the time it was done. Then I wrapped my arms around Soda again and pressed my body to his.

I just couldn't stop crying. I guess Soda must have felt the tears through his uniform shirt, because he picked my head up again and held it between his hands.

"Brookie, I know it looks bad and it sounds bad, but you don't know how lucky I am. I could have lost more of the leg. They said it would have been worse if it was above my knee. I'm lucky I walked away from that landmine at all. I should have died, but me and Steve were running together and it just so happened that he pulled me in another direction at just the right time."

I was trying to stop crying, I really was, but there was just too much feeling inside of me. Happiness and relief that he was back, sadness and fear, if I'm being honest, about what lay ahead for him.

"I'm sorry," I choked out, swiping at my cheeks. "I'm tryin' to stop blubbering. I just, I love you so much."

I didn't know any other way to explain all the things I was feeling than with those words. But I knew Soda would understand. He always understood.

Soda smiled and tipped his head forward, so that our foreheads were touching.

"I know," he told me. "I love you so much, too."


	3. Chapter Two

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

The homecoming was happy, but there were some things that weren't entirely.

Soda admitted that the false leg, which he called a 'dummy' leg, didn't fit that well and actually hurt to use after a while. That's why he had the cane, too. He said once he got one that fit, he wouldn't need the cane anymore.

"They kind of just gave me this one to get me back to America, but there's supposed to be papers in the letter they're sendin' to get one that does fit."

So I called Darry and only told him that I needed to come over, because even though Soda said he would be okay walking the few blocks to the Curtis house, I could see the exhaustion around his eyes. Soda was still smiling and his brown eyes still shined, but I knew he was too tired to walk.

"I'm sorry Ponyboy won't be here," I told him, walking back into the living room after calling Darry. Soda smiled at me from the couch and pulled me down to sit in his lap. "He'll be here this weekend, though. Pony still gets homesick."

Ponyboy was at Oklahoma State University, in Stillwater, about an hour away from Tulsa.

"He's only been there a month!" Soda said, laughing. Ponyboy had just started college in August.

It didn't take long before we heard Darry's knock on the door.

"You want me to answer it?" I asked, but Soda shook his head so I moved off of his lap so he could get up. It took him a moment, just like sitting down had. Even though it was just a second, it made me sad to see him have a hard time with something that should have been easy.

I wasn't trying to be nosy, but from the couch I could see the door perfectly. Soda didn't even have it open all the way when Darry barged in and scooped him up into a hug that lifted Soda off of his feet.

Darry was crying, which I hadn't ever seen before. Not even when his parents died. But he was crying now, and holding on to Sodapop so tight that he was complaining.

"You're gonna bust my ribs, Dare," Soda teased him, but there was still a huge smile on his face. When Darry set Soda down, I watched Soda put all of his weight on his right leg until he had the cane on the floor again.

Darry noticed the cane faster than I did.

"What's this?" He asked. "Did the war make you old, baby brother?"

At the least, the Vietnam War had taken Soda from eighteen to twenty. Soda shook his head at his brother and smirked.

"Wanna fill him in, Brookie?" I reckoned explaining his new situation in life took a lot out of Soda.

"He's got a robot leg," I told Darry. "The left one, below the knee. A landmine took it off."

Soda lifted his pant leg to show Darry, just like he had for me. New tears built up in Darry's eyes. I was glad I wasn't the only one who wanted to cry about Soda's lost leg, even if Soda seemed okay with it.

While Soda and Darry sat in the living room and talked, I cooked some dinner for the three of us. I think we all agreed without saying anything that there would be time enough to tell Two-Bit, plus Pony was coming for the weekend. The news would be out soon enough.

From the kitchen, I could still hear some of their talk. Soda told Darry about being in the jungle in Vietnam and about animals they'd only seen in books. Darry caught Soda up on the happenings in Tulsa: Two-Bit's job at the Coca-Cola factory, Darry's promotion, that Tim Shepard was still in and out of jail, but Curly Shepard was doing pretty okay.

And then I heard Darry say this in a choked voice, and my heart just about broke to a million pieces: "I guess I didn't do a very good job, huh? Pony got wrapped up in a murder and you lost a leg."

After we ate and Darry left, I told Soda I thought he ought to go to bed even though it was only eight o'clock.

"You look like you could fall asleep sittin' there," I told him. And he did. His eyelids were heavy over his eyes, which had gone hazy.

"I think you might be right," Sodapop admitted, his sentence swallowed by a yawn. I was tired, too. It had been a day. I was thankful I had the next day off—the dentist office I worked at was only open Monday through Thursday.

In my bedroom, Soda showed me how to remove the false leg and unwrap the bandages he had to wear around what was left of his leg.

"It's healed," Soda said when my eyes widened in surprise. There was an X-shape across the part where his leg ended, and it was red and angry looking. "It's just a scar now."

"Does it hurt?" I asked, reaching a hand out. I wanted to touch it. If I touched it, then it would be real.

"No," he said. "Well, what's left doesn't hurt. You can touch it. Wanna hear something wild, though, Brookie?"

I ran my fingertip carefully over the red scar while Soda told me about 'phantom leg pain', which he said happened a lot the first few days after the surgery to remove the lower part of his leg.

"Oh, Darry has a girlfriend, by the way." Her name was Charlotte, and I knew Darry hadn't told Soda about her yet. Mostly because they had only started dating the week before Soda came home.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?! I would have grilled him about it." I smiled, because I knew Soda would have just about twisted his older brother's arm to get information out of him.

Once he had removed the false leg and laid down, Soda was asleep within minutes. I stayed up a little longer, playing with his short hair. It was soft, free of the grease he used to wear in it.

I still couldn't believe that he was back. Even feeling his warm skin under my hand…it was just so crazy to me that he was here.

I traced the line of his shoulder and noticed there was a scar there that hadn't been there two years ago. It was a raised line, maybe an inch long, and already silver. An old scar, not a new on like on his leg.

I ran my thumb over it, but it didn't bother Soda at all. He was dead asleep.

Soda was only twenty then, but across his forehead I could see the faintest of wrinkles. I placed a kiss on them.

My husband, the beautiful boy I had married when I was barely seventeen, had come back to me so different.

I turned out my bedside lamp and laid my head on his chest, where I could hear Soda's heart. This, at least, had not changed. Underneath it all, he was still Sodapop, my Sodapop.


	4. Chapter Three

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

When I woke up the next morning, I was alone in my bed. I almost thought I must have dreamed the whole thing, until I heard Soda whistling from the kitchen.

"Hey, I would've done that," I walked into the kitchen to see Sodapop standing at the stove, cooking eggs and bacon. He wore only his underwear and an undershirt. This made me giggle, but I had for force my eyes not to get stuck on his left leg.

"Surely I earned the right to make my pretty wife breakfast while I was in Vietnam." Soda turned from the pan to wrap his arm around my waist and kiss me.

"Well, I won't argue that. I just thought you might wanna rest."

"There's plenty of time for that. Pony's coming today, huh?" I nodded and glanced into the pan on the stove. I was a little relieved to see that everything was the color it was supposed to be.

Soda must have caught on to what I was doing. I still had my arms wrapped around his waist, so I could feel his laugh in his chest.

"This kitchen is sorely missin' food coloring, Brookie."

I let Soda finish the eggs and bacon while I sat at the kitchen table and watched him. All I wanted to do was look at him and hug him because I was still having a hard time believing he was really here. For good.

As much as that missing leg changed him, I was thankful for it in a way. Never again could the army take him from me.

"Oh, I have something to show you," I told Soda once we had finished breakfast. I went to my closet and got the safe out, putting in the combination as I walked back to the kitchen. The safe was full to the brim with all the money I had been saving.

"Look at this," I told Soda, moving our marriage certificate out of the way as he pulled me onto his lap. I think he felt the same way I did. Neither of us wanted to be very far away from each other.

"What, you tryin' to be a Soc now?" Soda teased. I shook my head.

"This is all yours," I told him. "All your military pay. Well, half of it, anyway, since I gave half to Darry."

Soda picked up a stack of the money and flipped it like the pages of a book. I don't think he knew just how much he was making for fighting a foreign war.

"This is a lot," Soda whispered, a smile growing across his face.

"I wanted you to have it," I told him. "I haven't used any of it. I have a job, and I've been using that money.

"Well, look at my independent little lady," Soda smiled, dipping me back a little to kiss me.

* * *

We waited until Ponyboy got into town and had seen Sodapop before calling Two-Bit.

I think Ponyboy might have cried more than I did, even though he was smiling at the same time. He had changed, too. Darry was still the tallest, but Soda was only an inch shorter than him, and Pony only an inch shorter than Soda.

Pony still greased his hair, though he wore it just a little shorter and neater than he used to.

"Should've got a peg-leg, man," was Pony's only comment when he learned the news of Soda's leg. I swear, Ponyboy and Two-Bit were nearly the same person sometimes.

Ponyboy couldn't keep the secret, he was so excited, so he told Two-Bit over the phone. Two-Bit showed up with beer and Karen, Curly, and Evie in tow.

"It ain't a homecoming if there's no party!" Two-Bit yelled as he walked through the door.

Once Two-Bit learned about Soda's leg, he actually talked him into taking it off.

"Man, I wanna see! Lemme see, take it off. Or I'll lift it off of ya when you're not lookin', your choice, Soda!"

Soda only laughed and agreed, pulling the plastic and metal leg off and passing it to Two-Bit. He stuck his hand inside and waved his arm around wildly.

"This would beat a switch in a fight any day! Can you imagine a guy comin' at you with a leg and foot for an arm, Dare?" Two-Bit laughed wildly at himself, waving Soda's leg in front of Darry.

Ponyboy rolled his eyes at Two-Bit and hit him upside your head. "You're not even drunk yet and you're already acting a fool, you hood."

"Guess we gotta loosen this college boy up!" Two-Bit shouted, tackling Ponyboy to the floor in the middle of the living room. I grabbed Soda's leg before Two-Bit could use it against Pony in their wrestling match.

While they wrestled, Evie leaned over Karen and Curly to ask Soda questions about Steve.

"Was he okay, last time you saw him?" Evie asked nervously.

"More than okay! They had just given him a medal for his shootin' when I left."

"I haven't gotten a letter in a while," Evie said, her eyes sad. But Soda waved away her words with his hand.

"The mail's late. Brookie hasn't even get the letter from the army about me comin' home yet."

Ponyboy was pinned underneath Two-Bit, but he didn't seem to mind much. He propped his head on his hand while Two-Bit sat on his back.

"But why would Brooklyn get the letter?" Ponyboy asked. "Wouldn't Darry get it?"

Then Ponyboy's eyes widened as he looked between me and Soda both sitting in the same armchair. I looked at Soda and shrugged. We hadn't told anyone and neither of us had a wedding ring, but after two years I think we both kind of forgot no one else knew.

"Surprise!" I said.

Soda laughed and followed it up with, "We got married before I left."

"You've been married this whole time and never told us?!" Karen nearly yelled, stepping over her brother and Ponyboy on the floor. "You didn't even get a wedding."

Karen was standing over us with her arms crossed. She looked like her and Two-Bit's mother, with the scolding look on her face.

"It was a secret so I could finish school," I said with another shrug.

"Swindlin' the man," Curly said, pulling Karen away from us and back onto the couch beside him. "I like it."

"Leave the not-so-newly-weds alone, Karen," Two-Bit said. He still hadn't bothered to get off of Ponyboy. "The groom's only got one leg to stand on, he doesn't need you tryin' to knock him down."


	5. Chapter Four

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

When I was fifteen, Soda watched my brother die with me. He held me to his chest, so that I wouldn't run forward and catch the same bullets Dallas was.

When I was sixteen, Soda showed me the exact spot where his own parents died. I told him about my mother killing herself.

You would think that would be the darkest things in our relationship, until Soda started to tell me about Vietnam.

He wouldn't, not at first.

"I don't even wanna think about it, Brookie," he told me just a few days after he had returned home. He held me close to him while we watched TV. "I'm just happy to be here, with you."

And I knew that was true, but he was also having nightmares every night. They weren't normal nightmares, either. They started the second night Soda was home. I had been sleeping with my head resting on Soda's chest. As we fell asleep, the sound of his heart and steady breathing had been comforting to me.

Later in the night, though, Soda's heart began to race. That's what woke me at first. Then Soda's hand, which had been resting on my arm, suddenly gripped my arm so tightly I was sure I would be left with bruises.

One look at Soda's face showed that he was still asleep. His eyes were closed tight, his eyebrows pulled together to create a deep crease between them. Soda's mouth was twisted in a frown, and he was whispering something I couldn't make out.

"Soda!" I called out to him. I took his shoulder and tried to shake him awake, but it was no use. Whatever dream he was in, it wasn't letting go of him.

I tried to calm him by running my fingers through his hair and trying to shush him. "Shhh, it's okay. You're okay."

But nothing worked. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the dream ended. Soda's eyes flew open, looking scared and confused and much darker than I had ever seen them.

"Brooklyn," Soda said my name in relief and pulled me tightly against him. I still wasn't entirely sure he was awake. I could hear and feel his shaking breath and heart slamming against his chest.

"Are you okay?" I asked, tipping my head to look up at him and reaching a hand up to stroke his cheek. His eyes were still open, staring at the ceiling.

"Yeah," Soda said, trying to smile. But it didn't quite look right. He kissed me on my forehead and twisted my hair around his fingers. "I'm sorry I woke you up."

I didn't care about being woken up, though. "What were you dreaming about?"

The smile dropped from his face, turning into something sadder. He kissed me again. "Nothing you want to hear about, Brookie. Let's get back to sleep."

He rolled both of us, so that my back was pressed to his chest while he held me close.

"I love you," Soda said, after so long I thought he had fallen asleep. "I don't want you worrying about these things."

I didn't have to ask him, that night, if he was talking about Vietnam. I just knew. I let it slide, though, and after a few more minutes, we both fell back to sleep.

This became a nightly thing, though. Soda's nightmares came every single night, with the sleep talking and sometimes a _lot_ of tossing and turning. He wasn't sleeping enough, and you could see it in the dark circles under his pretty brown eyes.

"Please tell me," I begged him on the fourth night. Both of us were exhausted. "Please, please tell me, Soda. Maybe it will help, to get it out."

The fourth night was the worst by far. I had to shout to get him to wake up. He had been crying in his sleep. I ran my fingers through his hair, waiting to see what he would say.

"Brookie," he sighed. "I—" But I cut him off.

"I know," I told him. "You don't want me to worry about it. I love you, and I want to help you, so please tell me so you don't have to carry it around by yourself anymore."

He sighed again, then he kissed me, and then he said, quietly, "Okay."

"I guess it's because when you're over there, you don't have time to think about what you're doin'. You just follow your orders, and try to keep yourself and your friends alive…"

I was surprised he agreed, but I think it was far too heavy for him. Especially with Steve, the only person who could really understand, was still in the thick of it.

Once he decided to tell me, he told me all of it at once.

He told me about sitting in a trench where you're not sure if the ground is muddy from the rain or the blood of your fellow soldiers. That seeing dead bodies was bad, but seeing the dying and knowing you can't stop, you can't help, you have to leave them and let them die, is the worst of all.

He told me about how the whizzing sounds of bullets were all you heard for days sometimes, because everyone was too scared to speak or make a noise. He didn't have to describe that one too much. We both knew that sound.

He told me about being covered in blood that was not your own.

He told me about throwing up so much he nearly passed out the first time he shot an actual person. And how he thought it got worse, because eventually it didn't make him sick anymore.

He told me about how his whole body had said _no_ when he thought Steve was stuck and going to die. How he ignored everyone yelling for him to stop, had punched another soldier in the face for trying to pull him away when he went back for Steve.

"When I woke up, and the field doctor moved the blanket to show me that my leg was gone, I cried because I was so happy to have a reason to leave that damn place."

Soda talked for so long that the sun had come up by the time he was done. If I thought he had looked exhausted before, then I didn't know anything about exhaustion. He looked entirely spent, like he had poured himself out with the words tumbling from his mouth.

I didn't realize I had been crying during all of that until Soda wiped my face with his thumbs. The sunlight was coming in through my bedroom windows now, and I could see the sad look on his face and in his eyes.

He wasn't sad for himself and what he had gone through, but that the telling me had upset me. Not for the first time, I was amazed at how little Soda thought about himself.

"Oh, Soda…" I had said, throwing myself at him just like I did that first day he was home. We held each other for a long while.

It was a Monday, and though I didn't want to leave Soda after all of that, I had to go to work. But before I left, I made him hot chocolate, because I knew it would make him sleepy. It always did. I watched him drink it all and waited until he had fallen back asleep to leave for work.

I thought about the things Soda had told me all day at work. It did not leave a good taste in my mouth. I think I made more typing errors in that one day than I had in the two years I worked in the office.

After that night, Soda would never tell me anything unhappy about Vietnam again.

* * *

The first thing Soda bought with his army money was a wedding ring for me. Two years late, but I wasn't complaining.

It was a pretty little silver ring, with an opal stone set into it. When the opal caught the light, it flashed different colors. I loved it.

"You should have one," he told me, slipping it over my left ring finger. "I think you've earned it, sitting around for two years waiting for me to return."

I knew he was joking, but I rolled my eyes. "There's not a boy in Tulsa that compares to you, Sodapop Curtis, and you know it."

There was a matching, plain silver band for Soda to wear. I slipped his ring onto his finger, just like most people do on their actual wedding days.

"You can't tell me in those two years, no one had asked you out," Soda teased back and I blushed. It was true. Even though most of the people I knew already knew Soda and I were dating before he was drafted, there had been a handful of times someone had asked me. They were always a little unbelieving when I said I already had somebody, but he was away at war.

"They still didn't compare," I said again, and Soda laughed at my burning cheeks.

Aunt Dolly, Evie, and Karen were more excited about my ring than I was, I think. While Soda was visiting Darry, all three of them came over to admire it.

"Now you just need a house and a baby!" Karen had said happily, bouncing on her toes. But I shook my head at the baby part. I had just gotten Soda back, and I didn't think I was old enough for a baby, even if I was almost nineteen and married for two years.

"Brooklyn and Dulce fight so much when she babysits, can you imagine Brookie with her own kid?" Aunt Dolly had teased. Dulce was a sassy little girl, though. She wanted her way, always, even at two years old. Aunt Dolly always laughed when we butted head.

Just a few days before, I had told Dulce we probably wouldn't be neighbors anymore and she had said, "Good! Won't miss you!"

And then I had flicked Dulce's little nose. So maybe Aunt Dolly was onto something there.

"She was good with Dulce when she was a baby. It wasn't until she started talking that we had problems. Brookie can just give me her kids once they start to talk."

"Or you can just have your own, lazy," I told Karen, and she shrugged.

"Having a baby is a lot of work, though."


	6. Chapter Five

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

Unfortunately for Dulce, Soda and I didn't move in the end. We had plans to, but my dad had a different idea.

When Dad came home from one of his truck routes, he was as happy as the rest of us to see Soda home again. I think Dad was getting worried I would be a war widow before I reached twenty-one.

Dad was amazed by Soda's new leg, and that took up a good hour of dinner conversation.

"It stays on by these straps?" Dad asked, looking over the leg while Soda's pant leg was rolled up.

"This one does. It's not a very good one, though. I'm supposed to get a new one that actually fits, once the paperwork gets here."

"And how will the other one stay on? The new one?"

Soda shrugged, smirking at me over my dad's head. "I'm not real sure. I'll just be happy to get the other one, 'cause this one hurts after a while."

When Soda mentioned that we were going to look for a house to move into, Dad immediately shook his head.

"You guys should just live here," he said. "I mean, it would save y'all some money, and it's not like I'm here a lot anyway. The two of you will have more use for a three-bedroom house than I do."

When he said it, he looked sad. I knew he was thinking about Dally. I don't think he would have been able to stand living there with both Dally and me gone. I could see the surprise on Soda's face, and I'm sure mine looked the same.

"But where would you live?" I asked, taking a bite of my carrots. Dad motioned with his head, as if we weren't inside. I realized he was talking about the apartments across the street.

They were actually pretty nice, and I could see how it would make more sense to him to live in an apartment than a house all alone. It would be much easier for him to maintain, too.

"Are you sure about that?" Soda asked. I knew he didn't like taking things from people, but Dad was already waving the question away with his hand.

"It's paid off anyway. Y'all wouldn't even have a house payment to worry about." I was always the one who made out and paid the bills, since Dad was away so much and Dally could never be bothered. I knew the house had been paid off when I was thirteen, but I never would have thought to ask for it.

"Wouldn't we have to buy it from you?" I asked. I had never heard of giving a house to someone. Not when you were still alive, anyway.

Dad shook his head. "You can give a house a gift, just like you would a car. If y'all were to sell it, you'd have to live here for at least two years or you'd have a lot of trouble with taxes."

I looked at Soda and shrugged. I liked this house. I had lived in it since moving to Tulsa. It was close to my family and Darry, and like my dad had said, it would save us money.

"Are we even old enough to completely own a house, though?" Soda asked. I had been thinking the same thing, but I hadn't said it. The question made my dad laugh.

"You think being old enough to serve two years in a war wouldn't make you old enough to own a house, too? Brookie will be nineteen next month and you're already twenty. Last time I checked, that's older then eighteen on both sides."

While I had paid bills and filed taxes for my father since my mother died, I had to admit I didn't really know much about being an adult. It seemed there was a whole lot to learn.

Dad wouldn't let us argue with him. He insisted we have the house, and he wouldn't take any money for it, either.

"Consider it a wedding gift," he said when Soda tried to offer him his army pay. "Besides, you'll need that money until they can get your medical stuff sorted and you can get a job."

Then Dad's eyebrows knit together. "You can still do that, can't you?"

If it were anyone other than Sodapop, they might have gotten mad about the question. But Soda just laughed. "I can walk, can't I?"

When I told Dulce the news, she was playing in her yard next door. I waved to Aunt Dolly sitting on the porch, watching Dulce play. No one else knew yet, because she wasn't showing, but Aunt Dolly was actually pregnant with her second baby.

"Hey, Dulce!" I called to her. She dropped her dolls in the dead grass and ran to the fence. "Guess what?"

She tilted her head back to look at me. "What?"

I leaned over the fence, so my face was close to hers. "I'm not moving. I'm gonna live next door to you _forever and ever and ever_."

Her little blonde eyebrows lowered over her eyes and her lips pursed into a pout. "Lyin' bad, B."

'Brooklyn' and even 'Brookie' was too hard for Dulce to say, so she always called me 'B'.

"I didn't lie. I _was_ gonna move, but then my dad said I could have this house and live next to you forever. Won't that be fun?"

I could hear Sodapop laughing behind me as Dulce's little angry face turned a little red. Dulce was something else. Aunt Dolly said she inherited a Spanish temper from her father.

"Mama, B's tellin' lies!" I rolled my eyes at Dulce as she ran across the grass to Aunt Dolly.

"I reckon she thinks I need to do my rosaries now, for sinnin'," I laughed while Dulce put her hands on her hips and stomped her feet as Aunt Dolly told her I was a grown up and she couldn't punish me.

Aunt Dolly was raising Dulce Catholic. There had been times before that Dulce had brought me a string of rosary beads when she thought I had needed to apologize.

"You're bad," Soda told me, wrapping an arm around my waist and kissing the top of my head. Even Aunt Dolly was laughing, though, as Dulce gave me a dirty look and returned to her dolls.

"The little Spanish princess is spoiled," I countered.

Dulce was only a baby when Soda left, so of course she didn't remember him. Just like any girl, she was charmed by him, though. Aunt Dolly waved us over to her yard, and Dulce kept glancing up at Soda while we walked over.

I moved one of the porch chairs down to the ground for Soda. My dad's house— _our_ house, after the paperwork would go through—only had one step. Aunt Dolly's porch had five, and even though they were low, little steps, I knew they would be too hard for Soda.

The leg they had given him to get home was just not good. Since it didn't fit well, it was hard for him to control and keep his balance on.

Almost as soon as Soda sat down, Dulce came running over to him.

"What this?" She asked, pointing a little finger at Soda's cane. "Is it 'cause owie? Mama said got owie."

Soda smiled and looked at Aunt Dolly. "An owie?"

Aunt Dolly shrugged. "She's two. I was going for something she might understand."

Soda turned back to Dulce, leaning down and smiling at her. "Yeah, I got an owie."

"Leg owie?" When Soda nodded, Dulce nodded back as if she understood perfectly. "I give you Band-Aid."

Then Dulce climbed over me on the porch steps and disappeared into the house. When she came back, it was with a Band-Aid in her tiny hand. I couldn't help but laugh when she crawled back over me and went to Soda.

Since he held the cane in his left hand, I guess Dulce reckoned that meant his left leg was the one that was hurt. Soda let her pull up his pant leg and stick the Band-Aid to his leg. Since the plastic that made it up was skin colored, I don't guess Dulce even noticed it wasn't a real leg.

"Feel better?" She asked, obviously happy with herself. Soda gave her a smile and said it did. Then she turned to me with a look on her face like I should be in trouble.

"B don't got no Band-Aids?" Dulce didn't wait for an answer. She shook her head at me, her pigtails bouncing around her face. Her expression let me know just how dumb she thought I was before she went back to her dolls.

"Apparently Dulce thinks I'm a bad wife," I said, looking up at Soda. His brown eyes were shining.

"I reckon I'll keep you a little while longer, at least. See if you get any better with some practice." I rolled my eyes at him as he reached a hand out to tug on a piece of my hair.

Even though the temperature outside dropped when the sun started to go down, I felt warm inside. I loved that even though it had been two years and who knows how many miles between us, everything fell back into place once Soda was back.


	7. Chapter Six

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

 ** _-Sodapop-_**

"Remember that first day we met Dallas and Brookie?" I asked Ponyboy. He was home again for the weekend the second weekend I was back in Tulsa. Pony had just asked me about the places I had seen.

That kid had never left Oklahoma, so I started with the places I had gone in America before going overseas. I had already told him about California, where me and Steve went for basic training.

I was fixing to tell him about New York City, where _my_ Brooklyn was from.

"Yeah," Pony said, looking up from his homework to smile. It was a sad smile, though. "Dally had told us not to mind his little lost puppy."

He meant Brooklyn. She had been eight, and following ten year old Dally exactly like a lost puppy. I remember she had looked shy, ducking her head to hide behind her bangs, which were in need of a cut.

"And Two-Bit asked Brooklyn what she thought of Tulsa and she had said it was big, and Dally told her that was a dumb answer because New York was bigger. Remember that part?"

Ponyboy bobbed his head.

"Well, they sent us to New York City, in order to get to Vietnam, and I get why Brooklyn said Tulsa looked big. You can't hardly see the sky in the City, Pone. You wouldn't believe how tall those dang buildings are over there. It don't feel big. It's suffocatin'."

"I never did understand why she would say that, coming from New York," Ponyboy said. He talked a little different now. A little more like Darry did.

"So what was it like over there? In Vietnam?" Ponyboy asked me.

"What d'ya mean?" I asked, taking my cigarette out of my mouth. "Like, in general or in the war?"

"The war, I guess," Ponyboy peeked up at me from his paper. I forgot how green his eyes were while I was in Vietnam.

"Well, it wasn't fun," I told him, making him laugh. Lordy, I had missed my brothers while I was gone. We had gotten so close after our parents died and being away from them had about drove me crazy.

"I think what I really meant was, how are you doing? I didn't know if anyone had asked you."

I blew some smoke rings, finishing off my cigarette. Brooklyn asked me that question every single day, but I didn't like her worrying her pretty little head about those things. In my opinion, with her mother killing herself and Dally pretty much doing the same thing, Brooklyn had enough sadness in her life that she didn't need me telling her war stories.

"I'm doin' okay," I told him. "It's a lot nicer bein' home than it was sleepin' in trenches and tents, I'll tell you that."

I could feel Pony looking at me. He always said that I could read people real well. Pony could, too, he just didn't know it.

"That's good," he said slowly. "There's nothin' else you wanna talk about?"

I smiled at Ponyboy. My baby brother was something else, I'll tell you that. He never thought he was brave, but he was the only one beside Brooklyn with enough guts to ask me that question.

"Y'all don't need to be worryin' about that kind of stuff if you don't have to," I told him. "No sense in hearing about it all."

Ponyboy was quiet for a few seconds. "You know, two years is a long time. Steve won't be home for a while, and you might want to talk to someone before then."

I could see where Pony was coming from. I really could. But it was the same way with Brookie, even though I told her a little bit. Only a little bit, though, because I didn't want her to know how bad it had really been over there. I didn't want to tell them, to let them worry and give them the nightmares I was having almost every night, if they didn't _have_ to know.

"Y'all survived without me to talk to for two years, I reckon I'll make it until Steve comes home."

Ponyboy was still looking at me with those worried eyes of his. Man, Brooklyn had looked just the same, except for her haircut, but Pony looked like he had aged more than two years.

"Alright, man, but if you ever wanna or need to, you know where I am."

I gave him another smile. Even if I didn't want to take him up on it, it made me feel good inside to know that Ponyboy really meant it and was looking out for me. "Thanks, Pony. Now finish your homework!"

Ponyboy raised one of his eyebrows, just like Two-Bit had taught him to, and shook his head.

"By the way, I thought you was on a track scholarship. What're you doin' smoking?" Ponyboy shrugged.

"It's not track season right now," he said. "I'm getting better at it, I promise. Sometimes I still need them, though. They still calm me down."

I knew what he meant. Me and Steve had teased each other in the war zones, when we would smoke cigarettes by the pack. We would call each other 'Ponyboy', since he'd always been the cancer stick fiend of the gang.

"So Darry's out with his not-girlfriend," Brookie had told me this Charlotte girl _was_ Darry's girl, but he had turned red in the ears when I teased him earlier, "and I up and got married, so why don't you got a girl, Pony?"

This made my little brother go redder than a tomato in the face, which of course made me laugh. It also made him glare at me.

"I dated a girl for a little while in high school," he told me.

"What happened to her?" Ponyboy just shrugged.

"It was senior year. We graduated, went to different schools. Hey, did Brooklyn tell you she graduated with honors? She said she had nothing better to do besides her homework, with you being away and all."

I blew my breath. "Yeah, she was a model student, huh? Probably more well-behaved than any Soc. She was scared to get kicked outta school, since we got married."

Ponyboy made a face like he had never considered that before. "No wonder she ignored Sylvia for the rest of school. She always let Angela handle it when Sylvia would try to start in on her."

I thought about when Brooklyn had got suspended for throwing her milk on Sylvia during lunch. That girl of mine, she was something else.

When I got home that night, Brooklyn was asleep sitting up on the couch. I'm sure she was trying to wait up for me. Poor girl was tired all the time, between working and waking up in the middle of the night when I would.

With that stupid leg that didn't fit, I probably shouldn't of done it, but I picked her up off the couch and carried her to bed. It hurt like hell on my bad leg, but I didn't care.

She woke up before I got to the room, though. Her eyelids opened and her blue-green eyes were sleepy.

"Hi," she whispered, wrapping her arms around my neck. With her helping support herself, it was a little easier to carry her.

"Hi yourself." I waited until I had put her down on the bed to kiss her. I didn't trust myself to walk and kiss her at the same time.

I could tell she was trying to stay awake, but she was losing the battle. I laughed while she fought her eyelids falling and helped her out of her clothes and into pajamas.

"I'm not a little kid," she half-argued when I slipped her blouse over her head and her skirt down her legs. Brooklyn didn't put up any real kind of fight when I pulled one of my t-shirts over her head.

As soon as she was dressed, she curled into bed.

"You're not tired at all, huh?" I asked her. She reached a hand out to me. I took it and gave her hand a squeeze, but told her to hold on and I would join her.

She was asleep by the time I turned off the light and got into bed with her. Still, when I pushed her hair back and kissed her forehead, she moved closer to me and wrapped her arms around me.

I stayed up a little later than my Brooklyn, playing with her hair while she slept.

Now that I was back, and I could talk to my brothers and hold this girl I loved more than anything… I don't know how I got through two years without them.

I reckon half a leg ain't a bad trade for your family, huh?

* * *

 **A/N:** I thought having chapters from Soda's point of view as well as Brooklyn's might be fun... Let me know what you think.


	8. Chapter Seven

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

The day Soda got his new leg was the happiest I had seen him since he had gotten home. It took another month after finally getting the letter with the paperwork for it, and that whole month-long wait Soda was fidgeting.

Soda had passed the time in that month trying to keep busy. He did little repairs around the house that dad never had time to get around to. He helped Esteban, Aunt Dolly's husband, work on their car.

For my birthday, which I barely let him celebrate because it still felt wrong to me so close to the anniversary of Dally and Johnny's deaths, he baked a chocolate cake. Just like always, he put too much sugar in the icing. I smiled as I ate a piece, all the extra sugar that didn't mix in right crunching between my teeth.

Mostly he just tried to keep his mind of that other fake leg. I knew he hated it, and it made him feel week and tired, even though he never said anything about it. Soda never complained, even though it bothered him something awful. He just kept smiling through it all.

But I know how excited he was to get rid of the thing, even if he would never say it himself.

That other leg had rubbed the sensitive skin on his real leg just about raw. All of us were itching for him to get the new one, but of course Soda felt it more than we did.

Now that I had a proper wedding ring, I also had a habit of spinning it around my finger when I was anxious. I think I spent more time spinning that ring around my finger than I did working. The day it finally happened, I could have run all the way home I was so happy and excited.

I knew peace of mind would come with the leg. Soda's old boss at the DX had offered him his job back once he heard Soda was back from the war. I passed the DX every day going to work anyway, and Soda did _not_ like for me to walk to work alone.

I had been trying to tell Soda that the Tulsa he left was a different one than the Tulsa he had come back to. Most of the Socs who were part of everything that happened with Dally and Johnny had either gone off to college or been drafted into the war with Soda and Steve. All the younger Socs and greasers, well…What happened with Johnny and Dally had calmed them all down quite a bit.

Pranks and fights still happened, and drag races and party crashing, but nothing like it used to be.

Anyway, I didn't run, because I didn't want holes in my new stockings, but I did walk faster to get home that day. From the front gate to the front door, I did run, throwing the door open.

I barely shut it behind me before I was at Soda's shoulder, interrupting him reading the newspaper.

"Let me see," I told him. He laughed and turned his face, catching my lips with his own.

"Go take a look," he told me, waving his hand toward the footrest his legs were stretched out on. I should have known what he was reading when I saw the paper in his hands.

Every day, Soda read a part of the paper that didn't exist before the Vietnam War. The Tulsa paper ran a list every issue, one that never seemed to get smaller: names of local men killed in the war.

He checked for Steve's name, every single day, once he had worked himself up to looking. So far, Soda also sighed a sigh of relief every day when Steve's name wasn't in the paper.

While Soda finished his daily check and sighed, I nosily rolled up his pant leg above his socks. The boy still never wore shoes when he didn't have to.

"Oooh, this one is shiny," I told Soda, running my hand over the cool metal. It felt more solid than the other one had, and just looking at it you could tell the fit was better.

"Yeah, I reckon it'll do," Soda joked, a smile on his lips. He might have been joking, but just looking at his face, you could tell he was more comfortable now. There wasn't a tight look to his mouth and eyes anymore, like there had been when he was in pain and trying to hide it.

"Does it feel better to walk on?"

"Mhmm," Soda said, reaching down and taking my hands. He pulled me up into the armchair with him and settled me on his lap so he could kiss me some more. He could hardly stop kissing me, when he had just got back from that terrible place.

I did not tell him then, because I wanted it to be a surprise, but I had something planned for him that weekend. Really I had planned it a month ago, I was just waiting for that new leg.

Soda would be sad to know that our favorite horse, the one named Clara, had died. She was a pretty, old mare, and a good horse. We were riding with Clara the day Soda first told me he loved me. I think I cried for a good week when she died.

"Let's test it out on Saturday, then," I told Soda, and a rather naughty sparkle came into his brown eyes. _I_ had meant it as in Soda had been going downright stir-crazy with the old leg and how it kept him pretty much house trapped. But Soda clearly had another idea.

"Or we could test it _now_ ," he suggested, wagging his eyebrows just like Two-Bit did when he cracked a dirty joke. I laughed, and used his newspaper to swat him, but I certainly did not object when he stood up and lifted me with him.

Being married was great fun, once I actually had my husband with me.

It did not take long for Soda to figure out where we were going that weekend. Once he did, he was bouncing with excitement like he was a little boy and not a twenty-year-old adult.

I told him about Clara, but he was only sad for a second. He was too wound up with his excitement to be sad for long.

"That horse had a better life than most people," he said, directing a wink to me. Up until her death, I had visited her and brought her sugar cubes and slices of apples and carrots. Soda wasn't wrong; she was a rightly spoiled horse.

There were other sweet, old horses in those stables, perfect for Soda to practice riding with his new leg.

"Up you go," Soda told me, lifting me by the waist and settling me onto the saddle. I sat forward, like I always had, and held a hand out to Soda to help him up. The new leg was so much better than the first one, but I didn't entirely trust it yet.

Soda took my hand to help steady himself and swung himself up into the saddle behind me and took the reins from my hands. It took him a moment to get his left foot into the stirrup just right, but once he got it, he sent the horse trotting like he had never missed a day of riding.

"Did you miss this?" I asked him. I know I had. I felt like we were fifteen and seventeen again. I could feel his heartbeat where my back rested against his chest. Again there was the warm sun and the smell of hay.

"I missed everything about Tulsa," he told me. "But mostly I missed you. I think I drove everyone half-crazy from talkin' about you."

"Oh, well now I feel like a jerk," I teased him. "I hardly talked 'bout you at all."

Soda only laughed and he must have dug his heels into the horse's side, because suddenly we went from trotting to galloping. It made me jump a little and grab onto his hands where they held the reins.

I was not the natural horse rider that Soda was, not by a longshot. My reaction made him laugh more, and I knew he was getting me back for teasing him.

"You're bad," I told him when the horse settled back into a trot. I felt Soda's warm kiss against my hair.

"I don't think anyone ever in my life has said I was good," Soda countered.


	9. Chapter Eight

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

 ** _-Sodapop-_**

 _Everything is wet. Everything is always wet in the trenches. Sometimes it's raining, sometimes it's just humid, sometimes it's blood._

 _I read letters from Brooklyn, Darry, and Ponyboy sitting in the least muddy spots I can find. Steve and I take turns sleeping when we can, our heads resting on each other's shoulders._

 _I pop my head over the edge of the trench and I shoot my gun. I try real hard not to pay attention where the bullets land. One time when I stand up, I take a bullet graze on my shoulder. Steve rips his undershirt and wraps it around my shoulder before anyone can notice I'm bleeding._

 _Steve takes a bullet in his arm one night. It's a through and through, meaning the bullet didn't stop in his arm. I wrap it for him and press both of my hands on it. If you get shot, you want it to stop bleeding if you can manage it. If it gets dirty in a trench, you're done for most of the time._

 _"I don't know how Dally did this," Steve says, his face white even though I'm being as gentle as I can be._

 _Me and Steve, we hate the trenches. But we hate being out of them even more. At least in the trenches, you can duck when you need to._

 _When we have to go into the jungle, we see men fall into hidden booby traps. They fall in pits and land on tree branches sharpened into spikes. And we can't stop. We aren't allowed to stop and try to save them._

 _I want to throw up, listening to them scream, but instead I pick flowers to send to Brookie when we stop to rest._

 _The other soldiers call me 'Pretty Boy'. Only Steve calls me Sodapop._

 _We see terrible things, and we do terrible things, and we have terrible rules that we have to follow. We're never supposed to go back for someone, no matter what. But when Steve's boots get stuck in that stupid mud, I don't even have a choice._

 _Of course I run back for him. I pull him loose. We run, and I'm still holding onto his sleeve. I'm not paying attention—I'm just trying to get us away from the bullets all around us. Steve is, though. He always is. It's why he was so good with cars, back home._

 _"Watch it, Sodapop," he says, jerking his arm so that I have to follow, since I have his sleeve._

 _There's a noise louder than the gunshots. Fire, I can smell it, and skin burning. For a second, it makes me think of Johnny and his poor burned, broken back. Steve's white face with his eyes nearly bugging out of it is the last thing I see before everything is black._

* * *

I didn't think I would ever stop dreaming about the war. It happened every night. After a few months, my waking up in the middle of the night all the time didn't even bother Brooklyn anymore.

I couldn't blame her. The same thing happened with Pony's nightmares after Johnny and Dallas died. He probably had them for a full year after, but after a couple of months, his waking up didn't bother me anymore at night.

It was weird, though. Johnny and Dally had been dead for four years. Steve and I had spent two years in Vietnam together, and Steve would be gone for two more. Two-Bit had somehow graduated high school. Pony was in college. I had married Brookie. _Everything_ was different, but so much still felt the same.

"Well, it should," Brooklyn said when I told her it still feels the same. She kissed my cheek. Her hair was messy because she had just woken up. "Home should feel the same."

I got what she meant. I've never been real good with words, like Ponyboy. I didn't know how to put it to tell anyone how weird it felt.

But mostly I was just happy to be back. It felt so good to be in a place where fighting was for fun, not for your life.

"Man, it ain't fair that you got a robot leg," Two-Bit said when I pinned him one day after he jumped on my back. I think I hurt him a little, even though he had the same crooked smile that he always had. I didn't mean to, but I had knocked him down hard.

I think there's some saying about old habits.

"Why?" I asked, trying to laugh and calm down. When Two-Bit jumped on me, it scared me something awful. I think it actually made me think I was still in the war for a second. "It doesn't make me stronger."

It was really kind of annoying having to take the time to put the leg on every day. You really don't realize how important your legs are until you only have one and a half.

Two-Bit rolled himself and used his weight to flip me before he sat on my chest. I didn't know what it was with Two-Bit and sitting on people. If you were wrestling with Two-Bit, he would just sit on you once he had you pinned.

" _Aaaaand_ ," he said, like I hadn't even said anything earlier, "it hurts like the dickens when it hits you in the shin."

"Really? 'Cause I didn't feel a thing."

"Plus that damn thing is colder than ice, with all the metal in it."

"Y'know, Brooklyn never complains about it."

I had got him there. His face turned red and he started to hit me around my head. I put my hands up to protect myself, but I was laughing hard while he was complaining.

" _Soda_ ," he griped. "Too far! I do not need my innocent ears tainted with this talk. Brooklyn is practically my little sister, she spent so much time at my house growin' up. I'm saying this for myself and Dallas, who is probably rolling in his grave— _shut the hell up._ "

I was still laughing while Two-Bit made a face like he was about to throw up.

"Man, so you don't take it off?" He asked, but then he shook his head so hard his hair went all out of place. "No, don't answer that. I don't wanna know. I don't know why I asked. I should've known this day was comin', one where I hear too much about Brookie. You and this damn thing you've always had for her."

Two-Bit shook his head again and got off of me. I stayed on the floor, rolling from my back to my stomach. I watched him go into my kitchen and take a beer out of the icebox. He kept that there for himself, same as he always did at my old house.

"Always?" I asked. Two-Bit used the edge of the counter to crack his beer open.

"Okay, since she was thirteen, I reckon. Now, I ain't good at math—my name's not Ponyboy, after all—but let me see if I can get this right. If you liked her since she was thirteen, and she's nineteen now, that there is six years. But you didn't start datin' her until she was fifteen, so that's two years where you was absolutely clueless."

He held a hand out to me. When I took it, he lifted me from the floor.

"I didn't know I was so clueless."

"Well, that right there is what makes you clueless, dumbass."

"Okay, so tell me more," I told him. "Tell me what a dumbass I was."

Two-Bit jerked his head toward the back door. I followed him out and sat on the back steps with him.

"Alright, so for two years, we all knew. We saw you around her, how you looked at her. We knew you had a crush on her."

I shrugged. I mean, Two-Bit was right. I just hadn't ever told Brooklyn about all that. I always thought she was pretty, and funny. I liked her red-gold hair. I liked her bright eyes. I liked the way she talked, because it was a mix of New York and Oklahoma accents, and nobody else talked the way she did. But the beating I'm sure Dallas would have given me kept me away from her.

"When you started dating that Sandy broad instead, I had to give Tim Shepard five bucks, by the way. You being an idiot cost me actual, American money."

Two-Bit punched me in the shoulder.

"Okay, but wait. Would _you_ have dated Dallas' little sister?"

I reckon I was the world's biggest idiot from the look Two-Bit gave me then.

"Well, you up and married her. But no, I wouldn't've. I liked being alive then and I like being alive now. Reckon things still would have turned out the way they did if Dally hadn't died?"

I looked across the yard to next door, where Brooklyn was hanging up laundry for her aunt while Dulce played in the yard. Dolly was pregnant, and it was making her sicker than a dog, so Brooklyn was helping when she could.

"I dunno, man. Brookie thinks he was always gonna die, somehow." I thought about the day Brooklyn had told me about her mom killing herself. I didn't mention it to Two-Bit, though. That wasn't something you said for someone else.

Two-Bit picked up a rock and tossed it across the yard.

"Yeah. He was too angry, y'know? I mean, I miss him, even if he was mean, but I get what she means." Two-Bit laughed, but it sounded funny. "One time Pony told me that we should've known, because Dally was all fire, and fires always burn themselves out after a while."

See, that's what I mean about how Ponyboy was so good with putting things into words. That made perfect sense. Sometimes I wished Pony could just read my thoughts and say things for me.

"Never expected little Johnny to go, though." Two-Bit threw another rock. "What with the way we were all watchin' out for him. I guess we would all make horrible babysitters, huh?"

"I don't reckon any mother in her right mind would have hired us hoods, anyway."

"That baby would've had great switch-blade skills, man."

I had gotten so busy talking to Two-Bit that I didn't notice Brookie finish hanging up the washing and come back home. Not until she opened the back door a little and squeezed through so she wouldn't hit us.

"Did you drink my last root beer again?" She asked. Brookie drank root beer the way Pony drank Pepsi. Which was all the time.

"You're accusin' the wrong man sitting on this back porch, Brookie." I pulled her down to sit in my lap and she glared at Two-Bit.

"You gave it to this deplorable member of society? Some husband you are. I'm divorcin' you."

Two-Bit let out a low whistle. "That's cold. Rehome him at least, like they do with pets. We can put a personal ad in the paper."

"Twenty-year-old Vietnam War veteran. Devastatingly handsome. One and a half legs. Will give away the things that make you happy to his no-good friends. How much do you reckon that'll cost, Two-Bit?"

"Gotta call Pony for that one. I ain't about to do math. I left that behind when they forced me to graduate."

Brooklyn ran her hands through my hair. It had grown out a little from the short cut the army made everyone get, but it still wasn't long enough to grease.

"I dunno, on second thought, maybe I'll keep him. He is pretty dang cute."

All three of us sat on the porch while the sunset. Pony would have loved it. I was itching for summer to come, so my baby brother would be home all the time, not just on some weekends.

And I was itching for two more years to be done already, because every time things got too nice or happy, my mind went right back to the fighting. All because Steve was there.

It didn't feel right that I should be sitting safe with my wife on my lap and a friend so good that he was really more of a brother by my side while Steve could die.


	10. Chapter Nine

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

I watched my brother die when he was seventeen. I heard the guns go off; I saw the bullets tear into his body. I would have ran to him, and probably caught a bullet or two myself, if Soda hadn't caught me by the waist to stop me that night.

I had only watched one person die, and four years later it was still with me. I could still see it all. The dark red blood stains spreading across Dally's shirt. The way he fell first to his knees, and then all the way down. His icy blue eyes going empty.

Soda had watched so many more people die. And he wouldn't say it, but I wasn't stupid enough to think he hadn't had to kill some of them. Not because he wanted to, but because the army made him. He never talked about that, not with me anyway. Maybe he did with his brothers or Two-Bit, I don't know.

But you could see it in his face, sometimes. When he woke in the middle of the night, and his pupils were so big that his eyes were more black than brown. When a gun went off somewhere in the distance—because we did still live on the rough side of Tulsa, even if it had gotten a little better—and his whole body went tense and his breathing became shallow.

That first New Year's Eve was terrible for Soda, what with all the fireworks. He jumped a little every time one went off. Soda smoked cigarettes until his hands stopped shaking that night.

I understood that, the gunshots and the fireworks. A handful of years after my brother's death, and even the pop of an engine backfiring could take me back to that night. My heart would race and sometimes I would jump at the sound. But that was just one night, not two years of bullets and bombs every day.

Sometimes, he would see a stranger and immediately look away. I reckon those random people must have looked like people he knew in Vietnam.

I don't know how he did it, but he would bring himself out of his head and back to Tulsa somehow. Sometimes he would shake his head a little, and then a smile would spread across his face. But his eyes wouldn't sparkle…you could tell he was still remembering.

But unless you were paying attention to him, you wouldn't notice these things. He hid them pretty good. And if you asked, like I did all the time, he would tell you that everything was fine. Just fine.

Nobody knew about PTSD in 1968, or that a lot of soldiers had it. I don't know how Soda got through it all without any help from us.

I still feel bad about it every day.

* * *

Even when his final exams for his first year of college were coming up, Ponyboy came home to Tulsa on the weekends. He had a ton of homework, of course, but he wanted to see Soda so he kept coming home. Ponyboy always had plenty of homework in tow.

And when Ponyboy was home, it was an excuse for us to all get together like we used to. Two-Bit always had a steady supply of beer. Sometimes Curly, Karen, and Evie joined, but sometimes I was the only girl. Darry and Soda cooked together. After a while, Darry _finally_ started bringing his girlfriend Charlotte around.

I liked Charlotte. She had curly dark-brown hair and pretty, gray eyes. She was obviously middle-class, but didn't seem to mind Two-Bit's rough humor or the grease Pony still wore in his hair.

Two-Bit really enjoyed teasing Ponyboy about his homework—in a loving way, according to himself.

"Oooh, Pony brought a paper to type with him this time," Two-Bit said. "Watch this, Soda. I like to see how long Mrs. Curtis here can last until she gets mad and makes Ponyboy let her type his paper for him."

Ponyboy was a terrible typist. Back then, all girls in high school took typing classes alongside home economic classes. We were never expected to do much other than work as secretaries and get married.

It would have been considered crazy, to women of older generations, that I was still working at the dentist's office with my husband home from war. I loved my job, though. It was good money, and the nurses I worked with were funny and nice. Despite my love of skirts and dresses, I was not always as old-fashioned as my feminist Aunt Dolly liked to say I was.

"Ponyboy's typing hurts my soul," I said in my own defense. I turned my face away from the dining room, where Pony had set up the typewriter and sat down to work. The thing about Pony's typing was that he chicken-pecked his way through it, instead of laying his hands over the keys.

If you're a good typist, there's a rhythm to it, and you don't make a lot of mistakes. If you're a good typist, you were the exact opposite of Ponyboy Michael Curtis.

"I'm gonna give her five minutes. What do you think, Darry?" Two-Bit asked, a hug smile on his face.

"She lasted fifteen last time, man. Give her a little credit." Darry called from the kitchen.

"Alright, so fifteen minutes from Darry. Soda, you don't get to vote, because you'd be one biased son-of-a-gun. Make us proud, Brookie." I rolled my eyes at Two-Bit and then squished Soda's cheeks between my hands because he was smiling, obviously amused by the teasing.

 _Tap…tap…tap-tap…tap…tap…tap-tap-tap…_ That's what it sounded like when Pony typed. And I wasn't entirely sure why, but it just drove me crazy.

"Be strong," Darry called from the kitchen. "The kid is good at a lot of things, but we were liable to find something he was terrible at sooner or later."

Saying Pony was terrible at typing was what Pony himself would call an 'understatement'.

I tried hard to focus on Mickey Mouse, which Two-Bit had going on the television. Two-Bit himself was looking at his watch more than he was his favorite show. I made sure twenty minutes had passed before I stood up.

"We have a new record!" Two-Bit yelled while I went to look over Pony's shoulder.

"You've been typing for twenty minutes and haven't even gotten half a page done?" I asked him. "Just give it to me. Please."

"No," Ponyboy tried to argue like he always did. "I'm never gonna learn if you always type my papers for me."

"You'll never finish a paper if I don't type them for you," I pointed out to him. "Look, Darry's almost done cookin'. If you actually want to eat dinner while it's hot, you better pass that paper over."

Ponyboy looked over at Darry, who only nodded his head at him, before sighing and getting out of his chair. "Fine."

Soda and Two-Bit were all over Ponyboy as soon as he walked into the living room. I knew Ponyboy's handwriting like I knew my own from all the afternoons we spent doing homework together. Not to mention Pony's book, which he had written by hand. Now _that_ is something I would make Ponyboy type up himself. Reading it once was enough.

"Y'know, with Brookie doin' half your homework for you, I would think that would leave you time to go find yourself a girlfriend," I heard Two-Bit teasing Ponyboy.

"You've got more free time than I do, and I don't see you shacking up with any broads," Ponyboy shot back at him, making both Two-Bit and Soda howl with laughter.

"The kid gets sassier every week, I'm tellin' ya, Soda."

"C'mon, Pone, even Dare's got a girl now. You're ruinin' our numbers. Two outta three ain't _bad_ , but three outta three would be better."

When he was smiling and laughing and teasing his little brother, I could almost forget the terrible things that draft forced Soda to be a part of.

Almost.


	11. Chapter Ten

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

 ** _-Sodapop-_**

 _When I woke up in the medic tent, Steve was grinning down at me. His lower lip looked swollen, but I new it was just spitting tobacco. We didn't always have cigarettes. A lot of the soldiers went in for the chew, but I never did. I couldn't get past the taste._

 _"Hey, there, Soda. You took a big hit." Steve still had his helmet on. He must have come in the tent from the trenches. "Stepped on a landmine, you big ol' idiot."_

 _"A landmine?" I tried to ask, but my voice didn't really work. I had never felt more weak in my life. Steve had to help me sit up and take a drink of water. My hands shook too bad to hold the cup by myself._

 _"A landmine?" I asked again, my voice actually coming out this time. "You're sure?"_

 _"Sure as shit. I pulled you off of it, but, uh…well, here, just look." Steve moved the blankets away. I was confused. One of my legs looked shorter than the other. My brain was still moving slow—Steve said it was all the morphine they had gave me._

 _It took longer than it should have for my mind to work out that I was missing my leg from just under the knee down._

 _"You got lucky they left the knee," he said, rubbing at his eyes. Nobody cried in Vietnam, even if you really wanted to. "They were thinking about taking it, too, but they ended up not having to. Hey, guess what? Me'n you got the same blood type. I gave you some of mine—you're welcome. I reckon you can take it with you as a souvenir."_

 _"Take it with me?" I asked. "Steve, I ain't leavin' you here in this damn country."_

 _"You don't got a choice, buddy. They're sendin' you home immediately. Tell the gang 'hi' for me, okay? And let Evie know I'm alright. That was a stupid thing you did, goin' back for me. But I'm glad you did. I woulda died out there, Sodapop."_

 _I was sent back to the States immediately, where I spent some time in a New York hospital. I probably could have called any of my family, let them know what was going on. But long-distance calls cost a lot of money, and anyway, I liked the idea of a surprise._

 _The thought that a surprise would at least make Brooklyn, Darry, and Pony happy was all that kept me losing my mind about Steve still being in Vietnam._

* * *

Some days I really felt like I was losing my mind.

Too many things looked the same, but felt different. There I was, working at the DX station again, pulling the same tricks I used to so I would get tips from the Socy like.

Lucky for me, I had a wife who thought it was funny when I fake-flirted with customers. Any other girl would have been liable to tan my hide, but Brookie just laughed.

I walked Brooklyn to work every morning, and home every afternoon, which was pretty much the same as when I would walk her to and from school.

I was still hanging out with Two-Bit and Darry and Pony whenever I could. 'Course, Dally and Johnny and Steve were missing from this picture. Steve, at least, would be back. I believed that through and through…I couldn't stand not to.

And Tulsa, man, Tulsa looked exactly the same. It didn't have any right to, but it did. When I was sixteen and Dallas and Johnny had just died, I thought it was crazy that my whole world had changed but Tulsa looked the same.

That feeling was back now that I was almost twenty-one.

Same days were so much the same as the ones from five years ago, before everything changed, that the only thing that reminded me that everything was different was my missing leg.

One of the only things that was the same that didn't about drive me crazy on bad days was Brooklyn. Even on days when I felt like I wanted to crawl out of my skin, five o'clock would roll around and I would get to leave the DX to swing by the dentist's office.

Brookie would be waiting there for me, just outside the office. A lot of the time, she was talking with one of the nurses from the office. I didn't really care, though. I would still scoop her into my arms and kiss her. Knowing I could kiss Brooklyn at the end of the day is what got me through the day sometimes.

I still don't know how my little brother had gotten through everything he had been through by just writing a damned book.

* * *

Brookie's little cousin Dulce was just a baby when I was drafted. Now she was a sassy little thing, sassier even then Brooklyn. She spent a lot of time at our house while her mom was pregnant with Dulce's little sister.

Dulce being around so much meant Two-Bit had to watch his mouth even more than he was used to.

"I mean, if you _want_ to be shamed by a three-year-old and probably get holy water thrown on you, go right ahead," Brooklyn told him while Dulce was taking a nap. "The little thing is a Catholic mess."

"I still love her," Karen piped up. "Even if she does have a mean streak in her."

Brookie's mom's family was all Catholic. So was her aunt's husband, Esteban. According to Esteban, most of Spain was Catholic, too.

But I remembered Dally always hatefully telling Ponyboy that God wasn't real. Brooklyn just never talked about any of it, not until Pony went to that Catholic school. That was the first time she had ever talked about it. And even then, she only talked about it to help teach Ponyboy Catholic stuff.

"Man, I'm pretty sure I already knew all of the cuss words in the book when I was three! Our old man could've put a sailor out of business, Kare."

Two-Bit liked to joke about the father that left him when his little sister Karen was born. It kept him from becoming too bitter about it, I think.

Somehow, our house had become the place everyone came to hang out. That used to be the house I used to live in with my brothers, but with Ponyboy in college for one more month and Darry always working or off with Charlotte, it kind of just shifted.

I guess that was different, but it still felt the same to have the Mathew siblings sitting on my couch smoking cigarettes. Only Brooklyn made them smoke next to an open window when Dulce was there.

"These hoods, I'm tellin' ya, Brookie." She was sitting beside me, curled up under my arm. Brooklyn offered me a bite of her chocolate cake. "I think they just might be bad influences."

"I think you just might be right," Brooklyn said. I kissed her cheek and she snuggled closer to me. I tried not to be clingy, but I liked to have Brookie close to me in those early days back from the war. When nothing felt real and I was in my head too much, she always brought me back to earth.

Two-Bit and Karen both rolled their eyes at us. The two of them had a running bit about being disgusted by us.

"Least she's an honest woman, Two-Bit." I told him, twirling a piece of Brooklyn's hair around my finger. "That's more than can be said about all your broads."

"Amen to that!" Karen said, raising her cigarette up. Two-Bit gave his little sister a soft smack on the back of her head. We all liked to tease Two-Bit for his many, _many_ girls we saw him around town with. Apparently, Kathy was long gone, and Two-Bit had been 'sampling' ever since. Those were his words, not mine.

"Hey, Brooklyn, why ain't you as strict as the resident tiny nun? Wasn't you raised Catholic?" Two-Bit asked. His ears were all red. We had embarrassed him…and it wasn't easy to embarrass Two-Bit Mathews.

"Life's too short to worry about all the things that are bad if you're Catholic." I felt Brooklyn shrug underneath my arm. "Ask Pony next time he's here, Catholic school isn't all that much fun. There's more rules than you could ever think of."

Two-Bit nodded, like he was actually considering all of that. I think he was a little soused. It was his day off. Brooklyn was quiet for a minute before she looked up, her head turning between me and Two-Bit.

"Either of y'all ever notice Dally was supposed to be left-handed?" She asked. Brooklyn didn't talk about Dallas too much, even though she still wore his necklace every day.

Two-Bit raised one of his eyebrows at me. I shook my head. I never did notice. That's something Ponyboy probably would have picked up on, but me and Two-Bit never did.

"He wrote with his right hand, because they made him, but he did everything else with his left. Ate, brushed his teeth, shaved, held his knife…all with his left hand."

I was trying to remember, but I couldn't. Dally was hardly ever in school, plus he was a year older than me, and I dropped out when I was sixteen. I never did notice how he wrote compared to how he did anything else.

"When we went to Catholic school in New York, there was a nun there who would whip Dally's hand with a ruler if he tried to use his left hand. Our parents never said anything about his using his left hand, but the nuns and priests at school insisted using your left hand was a sign of the devil. That nun whipped his left hand until the knuckles busted one day."

Brooklyn shrugged again. "Our mom wasn't too happy about that. We started going to a different school after that, but Dally still wrote with his right hand at school. He was scared not to. I dunno…I just never much liked all the Catholic stuff after that day."

Two-Bit let out a long, low whistle. Karen's eyes were about to fall out of her face it looked like.

"Guessin' y'all won't be raising your kids Catholic, then."

Brooklyn laughed, but it didn't really reach her eyes.

"All y'all are just itchin' for us to have a kid," I grumbled. They really were. Brooklyn and I were the only ones in the gang married, and I think they liked to watch married life the way they liked to watch TV.

Two-Bit shrugged. "I need new blood to corrupt."

That got Two-Bit and Karen off on an argument about how Two-Bit probably shouldn't even be allowed around kids with that attitude.

Brooklyn had laid her head on my shoulder. I could tell she was still thinking about what she had just told us.

"You good?" I whispered to her. This time when she smiled, it was a real Brookie smile, bright as day.

"I'm _perfect_ having you here with me."


	12. Chapter Eleven

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

We had the money from all the saving I had done to buy a car, but Soda decided to build on instead. I think he needed something to keep his hands and mind busy. Plus he did work at the DX, so it wasn't like he didn't have easy access to good car parts.

He got the body of the car from his boss. It wasn't in bad condition, but all of the pieces on the inside needed to be replaced. Two-Bit helped him haul it to our house on a trailer one afternoon. They set it on cinderblocks in the driveway, for Soda to work on.

"Maybe you'll be done with it in time for Steve to re-fix it!" Two-Bit had teased him. Steve was a car wizard, but it wasn't like Soda didn't know his stuff, either.

"I'll just be happy if I can figure out how to get it running." But there was a big smile on Soda's face. I could tell that he was excited about this.

"I like the color," I told him, running my hand over the hood. It was a deep, cherry red. There was something about red cars—all the boys in the gang had always loved them.

Now Soda had one. Or at least the body of one, for now.

He was so excited about it that as soon as he came home from work, he would do what he could on it. While Soda worked on the car, I would work in my garden. And Dulce, when we were keeping her for Aunt Dolly, would play tea party in the grass with her dolls.

One day, Soda sat down with her in the grass and told her the different names of tools and car parts.

"Wrench," he would say, holding it up for her to see.

"Wench!" She answered, not saying it quite right.

Then he would test her. Once she was able to tell him every tool and part, he employed her as his little helper.

Dulce would sit next to the car while Soda laid underneath it. When he needed something, she would find it and put it in his hand. He paid her in hard candy he brought home for her from work.

When we were all out there in the front yard, we looked like a little family. It wouldn't have been too hard to believe that Dulce was actually ours, with her golden hair and big blue eyes.

Aunt Dolly felt guilty about our babysitting so often, but we really didn't mind it. This time around, being pregnant was giving Aunt Dolly terrible headaches and she was always tired or throwing up.

"She might start calling _you_ 'Mommy' at this rate," Aunt Dolly said one day when I brought Dulce back to their house next door. We kept Dulce pretty much every day until Esteban got home from work.

"Pff, I still don't think she likes me all that much. She has a pretty big crush on Soda, though."

"Oh, any girl with eyes has a crush on that husband of yours," she teased me. It made me blush a little. I didn't have any trouble admitting that other girls thought Soda was handsome, but still.

Dulce wasn't our only frequent visitor. Once summer started, Ponyboy could usually be found bumming around our house. He wasn't nearly as helpful when it came to the car as Dulce was, but he did like to sit and talk or read to Soda while he worked on it.

"College is somethin' else, Soda. There's all these people, they call themselves hippies, sometimes they smoke pot at school. Like, right in front of the buildings on campus. They don't even hide it! One time, one of them got arrested, and when the fuzz got there, the guy gave them all flowers before they handcuffed him."

Ponyboy was never so talkative as he was around Soda. After Johnny died and Soda was drafted, I think Ponyboy went whole days without ever saying a word. Having Sodapop home was opening him back up again.

It was good for both of them. You could see it in their smiles, which were so much like each other.

* * *

The Fourth of July was something that worried be all through June. At New Year's, Sodapop had a hard time with the fireworks. I understood that. The pop of a firecracker was so close to the pop of a gun.

And those fireworks had only gone on for a handful of minutes. What would happen when they were going on _all night long?_

I honestly wasn't sure he would be able to handle it. Soda chain-smoked cigarettes until he got his nerves under control on New Year's. He smoked so many that his face started to go a little green and I was worried he would throw up.

"Brookie, honey, what are you doing?" Soda was watching the news, which I am certain he never cared about before the war. He tried to keep up with things, though. Despite the letters and Steve's name never appearing in the paper, Soda still worried his handsome little head off about his best friend.

The sun had started to set, and I knew the fireworks wouldn't be far behind. I was going from room to room, making sure all of the window shutters and curtains were closed.

"I'm firework-proofing the house," I told him. I hoped that having the shutters _and_ the curtains closed might help muffle the sound a little.

"You don't want to watch them?" He called from the living room. I could imagine the amused smile on his face, because I could hear it in his voice. Usually Soda probably would have come to tease me, but he had taken his leg off.

Soda had told me they were called 'phantom pains'. Even though he didn't have that part of his leg anymore, sometimes, somehow, it would feel like it was still there, and it would hurt. When it was bad, it about drove him out of his mind and he couldn't stand to wear the false leg.

When Soda didn't wear it at all, he had crutches he could use to get around. Soda didn't like to go without the false leg—I think it embarrassed him—but sometimes he just couldn't bear it with the phantom pains.

No matter how much Tylenol he might take, nothing stopped the phantom pains. They just had to go away on their own.

"Nooo," I called back to him. Another part of my firework-proofing plan was to roll towels up and wedge them against the bottom of doors. I thought maybe that would help block the sounds farther. "Did you forget New Year's already?"

The final part of my plan was going to be to turn both the radio and the television up loud, to cover up the sound more. But I would have to wait to do that part after Soda was done with the news.

"We're going to go to bed as soon as it's dark, like boring old people," I told Soda, plopping myself down on the couch beside him. "I don't think your stomach or your lungs could handle a whole night of cigarettes to calm your nerves."

"What if I'm not tired?" He asked, but I knew he was. His leg had been giving him trouble all week, and there were dark circles starting to show under his eyes.

"Well, that's some bull, Sodapop Curtis. You almost fell asleep eating your supper. You're only awake now because you made coffee so you would stay awake to watch the news."

"You sure you didn't graduate a valedictorian, like Ponyboy? Y'all are both such smart alecks."

I shrugged and kissed his cheek. "It runs in the family, I guess."

But I was right about his being tired. As soon as the news wrapped up for the night, Soda went into our bedroom to get ready for bed. While he did that, I finished my last step of turning the volume on the radio and the television up.

"You think I can sleep through that, but not fireworks?" Soda yelled from the bedroom. I rolled my eyes, even though he couldn't see. That boy was calling _me_ a smart aleck.

"I think you'll have an easier time with this for sure," I told him, joining him in the bedroom. I actually wasn't tired, but I changed into my nightgown anyway and slid into bed beside him. I wanted to be with him in case everything I had done didn't work.

"Mmm, maybe," he mumbled, but his eyelids had already drifted shut. Whoever knew that a body part you didn't even have anymore could cause you so much trouble. "This'll make a good electric bill."

"I'll pay for it, don't worry," I told Soda, kissing him before sleep came over him entirely.

I couldn't hear one firework over the sound of the radio and the television. I hoped Soda couldn't, either. I didn't want it to start one of his nightmares.

We got lucky that night. Nothing happened on the Fourth of July, and I was thankful for that.

In my own opinion, Soda had been through enough and paid plenty of dues in the war. I never wanted him to feel the way he had over there again, and I was determined to make sure he didn't.

For the record, it was hard for me to sleep with all the noise I had made. But I wasn't going to let Soda have the satisfaction of knowing that.


	13. Chapter Twelve

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

While Soda was anxiously waiting for the day that he and Steve would be in the same country again, life went on. Sodapop started to relax little by little. Slowly but surely, being around friends and family was helping him leave Vietnam behind.

Aunt Dolly had her baby, another little girl she and Esteban named Anna Maria. Dulce's little sister was her complete opposite—dark brown eyes and hair where Dulce had blonde hair and blue eyes. Esteban called them _hermanas de la luna_ —sisters of the moon—because he said it was like Dulce was the bright full moon and Anna Maria was the dark new moon.

In July 1969, Ponyboy forced all of us to watch the moon landing live on television. Everyone piled in the Curtis house that summer day, just like we used to.

"This is history," Ponyboy said excitedly. He waved Two-Bit, who was trying to give Pony a beer, away from him. He was newly nineteen and had just finished his second year of college. "This is important."

Soda leaned over the coffee table and ruffled Ponyboy's hair. Pony was so excited that he was sitting as close to the television as he could without Darry griping at him that he would go blind.

Even though Ponyboy was in college and Soda and I were married, Darry was still liable to scold them. Old habits and all that. They were still the little brothers he had helped raise in Darry's eyes.

"Let's go to the moon," Soda said, wrapping his arm around my shoulders.

"Okay," I said with a giggle, "build me a rocket." By that time, Soda had finished the car. And it ran just fine, no matter what wise-cracking comment Two-Bit could come up with about it.

"That one might take a while," Soda said, his brown eyes shining. He was always happy when we were all together. From his seat on the floor, Ponyboy shushed us. The picture on the television had changed. Gone was a news anchor, and in his place was a grainy black-and-white video.

"I hope aliens don't like marshmallows!" Two-Bit laughed at his own joke, making fun of the puffy white suits the astronauts were wearing. "Reckon we'll see some giant s'mores?"

Darry rolled his eyes at Two-Bit. Charlotte was there with us, too. She was such a quiet girl. Ponyboy got along with her real well. A shiny new ring was on her left hand—she and Darry had just gotten engaged last month.

Charlotte was planning a small church wedding for them, set to happen in December. She had asked about mine and Soda's wedding and wasn't too excited when she found out we didn't have one.

"I was still in high school," I told her. I couldn't help but laugh at how wide her eyes got. "I skipped school to get married."

"So y'all eloped?" Charlotte was a romantic type, and I guess she excused the fact that there was no white dress when I told her about the day.

"Well, we had to get it done fast. Soda was being drafted into the war in a few days. There wasn't any time to plan anything."

On that day, while the sun shone outside, we watched astronauts walk and bounce around the moon. Ponyboy wouldn't take his eyes away, not even when Two-Bit tried to pull his t-shirt up over his head. He only knocked our goofy friend away.

Ponyboy was right, it was history. The first men ever to walk on the moon. Even Two-Bit had to admit that it was cool.

Later that same month, I got the first of a month's worth of nosebleeds that would surprisingly lead to something happy. I was at work when the first one came. While I was typing up organized expense sheets from handwritten records, suddenly there was a drop of bright red on my _L_ key.

I didn't think much of the first nosebleed. I had never had one in my life, that I could remember, but it wasn't like nosebleeds by themselves were weird. It didn't cross my mind that it could be anything more than a story to tell Sodapop after work.

The next one came a few days later, while I was washing dishes. This one was heavier than the last, and Soda had to clean my face for me, it was coming on so strong. I didn't even have time to take my hands out of the soapy water before my chin was covered.

"I bet it's this heat," Soda had said, his hand full of tissues clamped to my face. The summer had been brutally hot. "It's been so dry. I can't even remember the last time it rained."

"Well it better rain soon," I said, my voice sounding pinched since my nose was being held shut. "I don't want any more of these."

But they kept coming. When my cousin Grace came to visit for a few days, she joked that I must have taken up drugs.

"Been doing the white powder, Brookie?" She teased me. "And I don't mean flour!"

Grace laughed at her own joke. One of the nosebleeds had started when we were eating lunch at the diner where both Karen and Evie worked. Karen had rushed with more napkins, even though she wasn't even our waitress.

" _Something_ is going on with the nosebleeds, that's for sure," Karen used bleach to clean the table in front of me where some of the blood had dripped. "I keep telling Brooklyn to let Mama take a look, but she listens about as well as my brother does."

Two-Bit and Karen's mom worked as a nurse at one of the small clinics in Tulsa. Grace rolled her eyes, agreeing with Karen about Two-Bit never listening.

"Ain't that the truth," she mumbled, just as Two-Bit walked in the diner door. He slid into the booth beside Grace and put his arm around her shoulders. Ever since we were all in high school, Two-Bit and Grace would see each other every time she was in town. I wasn't sure if it was ever much serious, they're seeing each other, but they always had fun.

"Bleedin' everywhere again, Brookie? You really gotta get that under control, kid. It's an inconvenience." This time _I_ rolled my eyes. The nosebleeds were common enough that everyone was making a joke out of it.

Ponyboy took an interest in the nosebleeds in a different way. He never did like not understanding things, so when it seemed like the nosebleeds were here to stay, he got curious about them. Pony took to looking through an old medical book that had belonged to his parents.

He was the only one to suggest I might be pregnant, and I actually laughed. "Tell me a more believable reason for the nosebleeds. Why would nosebleeds be a symptom?"

"It says it's because there would be more blood in your body to support the baby if you were. Anyway, it could be allergies," Ponyboy read to me from the pages of the book, "a cut inside your nose, something wrong with your brain."

It wasn't that I couldn't believe I might be pregnant. It was _definitely_ possible. I did have a very handsome husband, after all. I just felt so young, too young to be someone's mom. Babysitting Dulce and Anna Maria were one thing. Having my own child was completely different.

Especially considering my own mother had two children and left them in the biggest way you could leave a child.

It had been almost four full years since Soda was drafted. He was twenty-two and I was not yet twenty-one. I didn't feel ready. But that didn't matter, because August came and my period didn't.

The realization came one blistering August day when Soda was helping me hang up laundry to dry outside. He had just joked that we would be able to take it done in five minutes, tops, the sun was so hot out.

 _My period should have started five days ago._ The thought was just suddenly in my head. I think I was in denial before then. But suddenly I just knew, for certain, that I was. _Pregnant._

I had fainted before in my life. I came very close to fainting when Dallas died, and I truly did faint the day I saw Steve's arm dripping in blood and was reminded of my mother. This time I think I fainted from the shock of it all. My vision went blurry and then black and I heard Sodapop yell my name in surprise.

I'm certain Soda caught me. He always has. I woke up inside, on our couch. Soda had slid his cool hand underneath my bangs, probably to check for a fever, and feeling it on my forehead woke me up.

"Hey, are you okay?" Soda hugged me to his chest as I tried to sit up. "You scared me! Did you get too hot? Here, drink this."

He pressed a cold glass of water into my hand. I drank it all.

Once I finished drinking the water, I told him I thought he was right, that I had gotten too hot. I guess I said it in a weird way, though, because Soda gave me a funny look. He finished hanging up the laundry by himself.

"Stay inside and cool down," he said before heading back outside.

I know I should have told him what I was thinking, but I needed time to sit with it. I was terrified. Truly, completely terrified.

Most of the memories I had of my mother were good. I know she loved me and Dallas. She told us every day, and her actions showed it, too. Even on the day she died, I knew she didn't do it because she didn't love us.

But I still didn't want to be like her. And that's what scared me so bad, that I would become like her. That I would leave my own baby the way she had. It scared me so bad that all I could think while I watched Soda from the window was that I didn't want it to be a boy.

 _Just please don't be,_ I pleaded. _I couldn't handle it if I had a boy and then a girl, just like my mom. Don't be a boy. Please don't be._

I decided I would keep this secret for a few days, so that I could get used to it. Then I would tell Soda.


	14. Chapter Thirteen

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

 ** _-Sodapop-_**

It started with those nosebleeds. I'll have you know, those nosebleeds scared the hell out of me after a while. Brooklyn always shrugged them off, though. She said it was nothing.

Well, it was something. I just didn't know what. Then that day she fainted in the yard, I thought I was gonna have a heart attack. I barely caught her before she hit the ground. I wasn't as fast as I used to be with my new leg. I was still getting used to it, after all that time.

Brooklyn always got up earlier than I did. All I had to do was shower and shave my face. She got up an earlier before I did so she would have time to do her hair and put on her makeup. But after she fainted, I tried to get up when she did, because I was scared it might happen again.

Never mind that she would kiss me and try to tell me to stay in bed and rest. I'm glad I decided to do that, because just four days after she fainted, she threw up one morning.

While Brooklyn was getting ready, I went into the kitchen to make her some breakfast. She had been picking at her food for weeks, and she looked pale even though it was summertime. I reckon she thought I didn't notice, but I did. Brooklyn rounded the corner into the kitchen and then froze.

Her eyes got real wide and her cheeks turned kind of green. She covered her mouth with her hand and ran back to the bathroom. I left the bacon on the stove and followed after her, because I was even more worried now. Brooklyn didn't shut the door behind her, so I came in and helped her hold her hair back while she was sick.

I sat next to her on the edge of the bathtub. She threw up _a lot_. When she was finally done, she rested her head on my legs, her eyes closed. I put my hand on her forehead, but she didn't feel hot.

"Brookie," I started to tell her, "I know you've been sayin' you're okay, but I'm starting to get real worried and—"

She cut me off. She didn't open her eyes, and in a quiet little whisper she said, "Soda, I'm pregnant."

I thought my heart stopped for a second. Brooklyn still hadn't opened her eyes, but she did sigh. She looked awful tired.

"What?" I said dumbly.

"Do you need to clean your ears out, boy?" She asked, a little smirk on her lips. Brooklyn never did pass up a chance to be sassy, even if she did feel awful. "You heard me."

"You really are?" She rolled her head into my lap so that her head was upside down as she opened her eyes to look at me.

"I mean, I haven't been to a doctor or anything. But, yeah, I'm pretty sure." I didn't realize I had been smiling real big until Brooklyn tried to smile back. But she didn't smile for long before her face started turning green again.

"I think whatever's on the stove is burning."

"Oh, dammit." I rushed back to the kitchen while Brooklyn threw up again. She was right, the bacon was entirely black on one side. There was enough smoke built up in the kitchen that I had to open a window.

By that time Brooklyn had come back into the kitchen. Her face was still pale, but at least it didn't look like she was going to be sick again. "I think I'm done with that for the morning. Or at least I hope so, 'cause I already brushed my teeth."

"Are you sure you wanna go to work?" I asked Brooklyn, turning the stove off before I walked to her. I pulled her close to me so I could hug her. She laid her head on my chest and closed her eyes.

"All I do is sit at a desk and type and file paperwork. I'll be fine. Besides, we'll need the money later anyway." She was right about that. Still, I had her drink some water and she ate a few bites of plain toast. That brought some of the color back into her cheeks.

Once she had put on her makeup, you couldn't even tell that she had spent most of the morning throwing up. I kissed her as we walked out the front door together.

"You know I'm happy about this, right? Really happy." I was. It was a surprise, but definitely a good one. A _great_ one. Brooklyn smiled a soft kind of smile.

"I knew you would be." I got the feeling that she wasn't as excited as I was. But we had to get to work, so there wasn't any time to ask her. I was glad it was Thursday, though. Brooklyn didn't work on Fridays or weekends, so if she was sick again at least she would have a few days to rest.

Since Steve was gone, I worked with whoever else was on shift. I was still the only full-time day worker at the DX, just like I was before the war. That day I worked with a kid named Gage. He was no Steve when it came to servicing the cars, but he got the job done. Eventually.

"You're more smiley than usual today," Gage said when he came in to work. The kid had a habit of being five minutes late. I had tried to convince Ponyboy to work at the DX with me for the summer, but he never did much care about the inside of the cars. Pony just liked how a tuff car looked on the outside. He was happier working at the library, and I knew that, but I wanted someone besides Gage to talk to. Especially on that day.

"It's a great day to be alive, Gage." That made him roll his eyes. I didn't pay him much mind, even when he walked by and turned the radio down some. The kid hated Elvis, which is one of the reasons I always turned the radio up when an Elvis song came on. The other reason was because I loved Elvis.

"That war made y'all crazy," he grumbled. Gage had a cousin who had served in Vietnam, too. His cousin got an early discharge like I did, but not because he got hurt. Gage's cousin snapped. He couldn't take the war.

Gage was from the Greaser side of town. I couldn't blame him too much for how he looked at life. Still, I tossed a Hershey bar from the counter at him. "Perk up, kid. It's gonna be another hot day. Better eat that before it melts."

The day went by fast, even with Gage's usual grumbling and complaining. It seemed like no time had passed at all before I was clocking out and handing to register keys to Tom, one the night guys.

"That wife of yours must be something else," Tom teased when he saw how excited I was to go home. "Just wait until marriage becomes nagging all the time."

"As long as it's Brooklyn doing the naggin', I don't think I'll mind too much," I told him. Tom just shook his head at me.

When I picked Brooklyn up from work, she seemed a little bit happier.

"I did the math," she told me, "And if I'm right, then it's six weeks. A month and a half, just about."

She didn't say it, but I knew she was talking about the baby. A month and a half. "I mean, a doctor will have to check, but I'm pretty sure. And I did eat lunch, I know you're gonna ask. I felt better after a few hours at work."

"Are you gonna tell your aunt?" I asked as we drove home. I always drove one-handed, so I could hold Brooklyn's hand with the other. I felt her hand move as she shrugged.

"Well, yeah, I guess. She's the only person I can really ask about stuff, huh?" If you didn't count Sandy, who was shipped off at sixteen to have her baby in Florida, Brookie was the first of her friends to have a baby. With both of our moms being gone, Brookie really didn't have anyone but her aunt to help her.

"Are you more excited now?" I peeked at her to see her cheeks turn red when she blushed.

"It helps that you're excited," she said softly. "Ponyboy is gonna gloat, by the way. He read that nosebleeds can be a symptom of pregnancy in that old medicine book your parents had. You know how he likes to be right."

"It does bring some joy to his life," I agreed. I opened Brooklyn's car door for her when we got home, and then the front door when we got up to the house.

We had a routine of sitting on the back porch after supper, to cool off. The days were still awful hot until the sun went down. Me and Brookie, we would watch the stars come out. She would tell me real constellations while I made up my own.

Brookie laid her head on my shoulder as we sat out there. She pulled my hand over and put it on her belly, which for now was still flat. "You don't think I'll mess it up, do you?"

So that's what was bothering her. I kissed the top of her head.

"There's no way," I whispered back to her. "No way at all. I promise."

I felt her hot tears drop onto my shoulder where her head rested. I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her tight against me.

"So how long do we have to come up with names?" That made her laugh a little.

"Seven and a half months, if I counted right at work." I could tell she was still crying by the way her voice came out, so I kept holding her. "You only need one name. It's gonna be a girl, I already decided. I'm leaving the naming up to you."

 _She already decided._ I hoped for her sake that her deciding worked. She was scared enough already. I wasn't sure how she would take it if we had a boy, especially a boy with ice-blue eyes and white-blond hair like her brother's.

And if we did have a girl, I hoped she wouldn't have the red hair and blue eyes Brooklyn's aunt Dolly had. I had seen pictured of Brooklyn's mom. I knew that Dolly and her sister had looked like twins, even if Dolly was younger. Brooklyn had gotten some of that herself, with her strawberry blonde hair and blue-green eyes.

A girl. No blue eyes. No red hair. With any luck, maybe the baby would look like the Curtis side of the family and we could avoid that entirely.

"So, can I name the baby after me?" Brooklyn blew her breath.

"I'll take this job away from you," she threatened.

"Yes, ma'am," I told her with a laugh. "But just remember that my dad named me Sodapop and my brother Ponyboy."

"I don't care if her name is unusual, you just can't name her after yourself."

"See, you're already bossy. You'll make a good mom."


	15. Chapter Fourteen

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

Throwing up every day was so bad that I almost wished for the nosebleeds to come back. Almost. The throwing up was easier to hide, that's for sure. Aunt Dolly was the only one who knew about the baby then, because the doctor had said to wait until I was twelve weeks along to tell anyone.

But I told Aunt Dolly before I went to the doctor, so whoops. Sorry, Doc. Already broke a rule. We knew now, though, that the baby would be born in early April. After my twenty-first birthday, but before Soda's twenty-third.

The heat was terrible, too. Even into September, it was so _hot_. And it exhausted me. Between the throwing up in the mornings and the all day, never ending heat, I had to take a nap every single day after work.

Thank the Lord for Soda, because he had no problem picking up all the housework while I was feeling so sick all the time. Usually it was a team effort, but not for the first few months I was pregnant.

As always, though, our friends noticed these changes.

"Gracin' us with your presence today, Sleeping Beauty?" Two-Bit asked while he ruffled my hair. He had taken to calling me 'Sleeping Beauty' since I started taking naps every day. I had just woken up from one to find him at our kitchen table.

"I have to make sure all the peasants in my realm are behaving every now and then," I told him. Two-Bit liked to hang around our house. So did Karen. The Mathews siblings were pretty constant fixtures. Not that either of us minded—this is how our group of friends had always been, and Soda was happy to see _that_ hadn't changed in the two years he had been gone.

"What happens when they aren't?" Two-Bit asked. He leaned back in his chair, a beer in his hands. Soda didn't drink beer, and obviously I couldn't, but Two-Bit kept everyone's ice boxes stocked with his drinks of choice.

"Beheading," I told him, drawing my finger across my throat. I walked across the kitchen and poured myself a glass of sweet tea before lifting myself up onto the counter.

"Ain't that unconstitutional? Cruel and unusual punishment and all that." I shrugged at Two-Bit.

"Better call Pony if you're gonna be askin' questions like that." Ponyboy was back at school by then.

"Man, we need another Brainiac for when the kid's at school."

"Are you harassing my wife?" Soda asked, coming in through the back door from taking the trash out.

Now here is where we could have gotten in trouble if Two-Bit had been paying attention. We were not quite to the point where we could tell people about the baby, so it was still a secret. I wasn't showing yet, but Soda had already developed a habit of laying his hand on my stomach.

That's exactly what Soda did. Before kissing me, he laid his hand squarely on my belly. Neither of us noticed until we broke apart and Soda had left his hand there. Only then Soda's warm brown eyes widened and he pulled his hand away and quickly glanced at Two-Bit.

Luckily, Two-Bit wasn't paying much mind to us in that moment. He had been distracted by the label of his beer bottle.

"On the contrary, dear Sodapop, she threatened to behead me." Soda laughed. When he walked by Two-Bit on his way to the pantry, he slammed his palm against the opening of Two-Bit's bottle to make the beer foam up.

"You probably deserved it." Two-Bit had to chug the rest of the beer before it could spew out of the bottle.

"There's so much abuse in this particular Curtis household," he mumbled once he was finished.

Soda wanted to wait until Steve was home to tell everyone, though. Evie and Soda had both gotten letters from Steve telling us he would be home in mid-October, right around my birthday. Which put me at around four months pregnant.

My dad, Darry, and Ponyboy all knew at that point. We had told them at exactly twelve weeks, but they were also sworn to secrecy so that Steve could be told at the same time as the rest of our friends.

Just like Aunt Dolly, my dad was really excited for us. So was Ponyboy, and of course Darry was, too, but that didn't stop him from cracking a joke about it.

"Aren't I supposed to do all these things before you or Ponyboy, since I'm the oldest?" Soda had shrugged and smiled sheepishly.

"That's what you get for being such a workaholic," Soda joked back.

We had decided we wouldn't tell anyone else until Steve was back. It was getting harder to hide once October came, though. Mostly because I was an idiot one day and changed clothes in front of Karen.

I had always changed clothes in front of Karen, and one afternoon when she handed me a dress she had bought but didn't quite fit, I didn't give it a second thought before changing in front of her. I wasn't showing yet, not really. I mean, you couldn't look at me and tell right off the bat.

But I was starting to. I had put on a little weight now that my appetite was back. Of course, Karen noticed.

"Those naps are making you gain weight, lazy-bones," she had said casually, but her eyes were trained on my stomach. I pulled the dress over my head and tried to ignore my heart pounding in my chest. I didn't want her to ask, because if she did, then I wasn't going to lie.

"Maybe," I told her, doing a little twirl so that the skirt swished around my legs. "But this dress still fits."

"Then take it, but you might have to pass it down to Evie next if you gain anymore." I stuck my tongue out at her. It was a good thing Steve was coming home in October rather than November, because at that rate, I was sure it would be obvious soon.

The day that Steve came home, Soda was practically bouncing off the walls. It was a Saturday, which was good because at that time, none of us worked weekends. Ponyboy even came to Tulsa for it, even though he and Steve had never gotten along that well.

"Stevie's comin' home!" Soda told me on that Saturday morning, lifting me off my feet in a careful hug. I knew Soda would never hurt me on purpose, but he was extra careful now that we had a baby on the way.

"I know!" I told him with a laugh. "You've told me every day for a month."

Soda took my hand and spun me around, dancing me down the hallway. Steve's dad, surprisingly, had traveled a to Tennessee to pick Steve up and bring him to Oklahoma. I think all of us were shocked that his dad wanted to do that. Steve and his old man didn't have the best relationship when we were younger.

Maybe four years of being in the war changed their relationship for the better.

Steve was supposed to be in Tulsa that evening, and for the occasion, everyone was coming to mine and Soda's house. Ponyboy was staying with us that weekend, but he was still asleep—in his excitement, Soda had gotten up really early and woke me up, too.

Ponyboy was excited to be an uncle, and he had the same opinions that Soda had—namely, that I shouldn't lift a finger while I was pregnant. _He_ had been doing housework, too, no matter how many times me or Soda told him he didn't have to.

Even though I had given Sodapop the job of coming up with a name for the baby, it was actually Ponyboy who suggested the name Lily that morning.

Soda had made pancakes for breakfast—blue ones, of course, because he still loved food coloring—and Pony was shyly pushing a piece of his blue pancakes into syrup when he brought it up.

"You don't have a name yet, right?" he asked, his gray-green eyes peeking up at Soda, who had his mouth full. Soda shook his head at him.

Their mom's name had been Elizabeth, but even I remembered that their dad had called her Lilybeth, kind of a combination of Lily and Beth, both nicknames for _Elizabeth_.

"And according to you, it's gonna be a girl, right?" Ponyboy asked me. I felt myself blush a little. Soda had made sure to tell everyone who knew that I insisted the baby would be a girl.

"Of course she is." I was already calling the baby 'she', because that's how certain I was.

"Well…" Ponyboy turned back to Soda. He was already tearing up a little bit. "What about Lily? You know…after Mom?"

I smiled at Pony, even as tears came into my eyes. I was an emotional mess since becoming pregnant, too. I was really done in when I looked over at Soda and watched his face change from surprised to crying, too.

"I like it," I said, before we were all crying too much. So, five months before my due date, the baby became Lily in my mind. A few days later, Soda would come up with a middle name. My mother's name had been Bonnie, which didn't really go with Lily, but Soda kept the _B_ so that the name became Lily Bloom.

Which also carried on Soda's dad's unusual name choices. 'Lily Bloom Curtis' wasn't as wild as Sodapop or Ponyboy, but I thought it definitely fit.

We had to dry our tears pretty quickly, because we had a lot to do. We did have a surprise party to prepare, after all. Evie came over and helped Ponyboy decorate while I helped Soda get food ready.

Darry had to make the chocolate cake, though. All three of the Curtis brothers always kept chocolate cake on hand, but they all made it differently, and Steve liked Darry's the best.

Two-Bit brought over cases of beer that would have been more than enough even for a party twice the size of the one we were having. Karen was there, too, but for all her teasing calling _me_ lazy, she wasn't Two-Bit's sister for nothing. While all of us worked around her, she flipped through magazines on our couch. Evie left around four in the afternoon, so she could see Steve privately and bring him to the house.

When Steve and Evie finally got here, it was to a jumble of limbs and shouting. Soda got to him at the same time Two-Bit did, and they both hugged him. Darry and Ponyboy joined in, and I think it was a good ten minutes before Karen or I even saw Steve.

Once he was free, he hugged me and Karen too, and Darry introduced him to Charlotte.

I thought _Soda_ looked different when he got back, but Steve had him beat. He used to be a lanky boy with a little bit of a baby face left when he shipped out. Now he had a square jaw, and a slightly crooked nose, probably from being broken a time or two. I had never seen his hair so short. Since it was short, it was easy for all of us to see a scar that straight through his eyebrow.

He was taller and more muscular, but also very tanned from all the time he must have spent outside.

"I managed to come home in one piece, though," he joked, giving Soda a goodhearted shove that was a little too hard. Soda had to put a hand out and steady himself against the wall, but he was smiling ear to ear.

Evie held onto his hand the whole night. I'm glad we made so much food, because I think Steve had at least three helpings while he talked to all of us.

He gave Soda updates on people they had met in the army. "I actually have a present for you, Sodapop."

From a bag I hadn't even realized Steve had with him, he pulled out a helmet. It was metal, but covered in camouflage printed fabric. When Steve passed it over to Soda, I noticed Soda's eyes darken. He turned the helmet over in his hands, and I saw the fabric was ripped in some places, the metal underneath dented in others. Someone had written 'Pretty Boy' with black marker in one spot.

In another spot, I saw my own name written in Soda's handwriting.

"You forgot that in 'Nam," Steve said. Just like when Soda had come home, Steve was wearing his army fatigues.

"I didn't even notice," Soda said, still looking at the helmet. Then Steve launched into a story we had only heard from Soda's perspective. For Soda, it was the story of how he lost his leg. For Steve, it was the story of how Soda saved his life.

"I would've died if it wasn't for your brother," he said to Darry and Ponyboy. "Really. Without a doubt. We were running from an enemy attack. Bullets were flying _everywhere_. I'm surprised neither of us got hit. My dumb ass stepped into a puddle of quick sand, which is no joke. It's not like in the cartoons, and it's not that fast, but if you're loaded down with heavy boots and a gun and a heavy pack, it just sucks you right in. I couldn't move! I thought I was a goner for sure. He wasn't supposed to, but Soda came back and pulled me out of it. But then _his_ dumb ass stepped on the edge of a landmine."

Soda tried to smile at his best friend. I could tell he was far away in his mind, though. Back in Vietnam, in the middle of the things he had seen while wearing that helmet.

"Good thing you pulled me off of it, or I woulda lost more than a leg," Soda told him. I kissed Soda on the cheek.

"So tell me what's new in Tulsa, huh? Pony, how's college? Getting a lot of girls?" That made Pony's ears turn bright red, of course.

"Did you know these two secretive brats got married before y'all even left for the war?" Two-Bit asked, hooking his thumb at me and Soda. Steve laughed.

"Yeah, he told me after like a month in 'Nam." Two-Bit had taken the helmet from Soda's hands and plopped it on his hand. Soda didn't protest, but he did turn to Two-Bit.

"Well, we've been keeping another secret, wise-crack."

"What now? Y'all are joining the circus? Brookie's secretly a princess and y'all are so rich and you want to adopt me even though I'm older than both of you?"

That made me snort and I told him, "We don't need to adopt you, Two-Bit."

"I think I would make a _great_ kid. Just ask my mom, she'll give me a good reference for y'all." From across the room, Karen rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"We don't need to adopt you 'cause we're having our own kid," Soda told him. It made me smile to watch Two-Bit's eyes go wide.

"Yeah, I'm not just fat, _Karen_ ," I told her pointedly. The story of Karen commenting on my weight had made Soda laugh. Now everyone except for Ponyboy and Darry had shocked expressions on their face.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry!" Karen said, breaking the silence and laughing. "I totally thought you might be pregnant, but I didn't want to ask in case you weren't!"

"No shit?" Steve asked. I had noticed that Soda cussed a little more often after the war, but apparently it had turned Steve into a potty mouth.

"Yup," Soda told him. "In April."

There was plenty more hugging after that. And chocolate cake. And a speech from Two-Bit about how we should name the baby after him, whether it be a boy or a girl.

It was just a wonderful, happy time, and I think for the first time since Dally and Johnny died, we all felt whole and complete sitting in that living room.


	16. Chapter Fifteen

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

 ** _-Sodapop-_**

Brooklyn took more naps in six months than I reckon most people take in their whole lives. I wasn't sure that it was the baby that made her so tired, but how much she was worrying over the baby.

"What if I can't do it?" She asked me on the same day she felt the baby move for the first time. At first she was excited and put my hand on her belly so I could feel, too. But while the baby kicked my hand, the smile fell from Brookie's face and she started to tear up.

I won't lie, it really tore me up to see Brooklyn crying about this all the time. She had no problem babysitting Dulce and Anna Maria for her aunt, but somehow she couldn't trust herself with our baby. And our baby wasn't even born yet.

I hugged her close to me and just let her cry, because there was really no stopping Brooklyn while she was pregnant. Once she started crying it was like a rain shower. It wasn't over until she cried herself completely out.

Believe me, it took her a good long while to get all the tears out, too. All I could do was hold her and wait. Usually no matter what I said, she would just start crying harder. I had learned fast to keep quiet until she was done. When it was finally over, she lifted her face to look up at me. Her cheeks were red and so were her eyes.

I dried her face with my shirt sleeve. The sad, scared look was still on her face.

"You know I'll be here, too, right? You ain't gonna be alone in takin' care of the baby." She nodded just a tiny little nod.

"Yeah, I know," her voice was hoarse from all her crying. "I just hit me, though, feeling the baby move. It's all really real. That's a real baby in there."

She looked down at her stomach like it hadn't occurred to her that a baby was growing there. I knew what she meant, though. When she put my hand on her belly and I felt the baby kick it, man, it did become real just then. I don't think my heart ever beat so fast, not even when I was fighting in the war.

It was an overwhelming feeling for sure. I would be lying if I said I didn't feel a little scared, too, underneath the happiness and excitement.

"Yeah, and it's _our_ really real baby," I told her. That got a little bit of a smile out of her.

"Well, I hope _our_ really real baby looks like you, 'cause you're pretty." Just like that, her mood had switched from crying to silly. I kissed her on the mouth and then on her belly.

"Are you going to cry this much tonight?" My big brother was getting married. Darry joked he was trying to catch up to me in life.

"I don't know, maybe. Don't tell me how to live my life, boy." There was my sassy wife again. Brooklyn left me in the living room to go fix her makeup. She had cried most of it off not even five minutes ago.

That girl always left me shaking my head. In a good way, of course. Two hours later, she really did cry her makeup off again, but at least this time they were happy tears.

"Is she okay?" Ponyboy asked while we all watched Darry and his girl Charlotte get married. I knew this was going to happen, so I had filled my pockets with tissues. Brooklyn was pulling them out of my pocket, trying to get the tears under control.

"It's just my new hobby, Pony," Brooklyn whispered back to him. She gave him a soft smile. Ponyboy was a little freaked out by the whole pregnancy thing. He was always worrying over Brooklyn. "I'm fine."

"Yeah, she's going for Olympic gold," I added. "You should be proud of your first sister in law."

I was pretty sure Brooklyn didn't even cry that much at our wedding. Those pregnancy emotions were really something else.

After Darry's wedding, the next three months really flew by. Lots of naps and crying and then sneezing and for some reason cleaning made the days go fast. Brooklyn always got allergies once spring hit, and that particular spring she was not happy about it.

"My head's going to explode," she told me, hanging her head over the arm rest of the couch. There were a lot of foot rubs by that point, too. Brooklyn's feet were swollen a lot towards the end of her pregnancy.

"Does that help?" I asked, trying not to laugh. I couldn't even see her head over how big her stomach had gotten.

"No, but I'm desperate. I want allergy medicine. But I can't have it until your child gets out of me." The little sniffle that came after that sounded sad, and that did make me laugh. Brooklyn kicked me with the little swollen foot I wasn't rubbing.

"Can you evict a baby?" Brooklyn's sniffles turned into a sneezing fit.

"I ain't an expert, but I'm pretty sure you just have to wait."

"But I need drugs to live through the spring."

"You're just gonna have to buck up."

But Brooklyn didn't have to wait all that long. On April 3rd, 1970, Brooklyn had a sneezing fit while she was trying to paint her nails at the kitchen table. She was going a little stir crazy, waiting for the baby to come.

Brooklyn's boss, the dentist, was actually really nice. He had hired a temporary secretary so Brookie could have time off work waiting for the baby to come. The dentist was leaving it up to Brooklyn if she wanted her job back or not after the baby was born. Being home was driving her just a little bit crazy, though.

"Did you survive that one?" I asked from the kitchen.

"Yeah, that last sneeze kinda hurt. I told you I was gonna die from sneezes." I looked over my shoulder. You could see into the dining room where Brooklyn was sitting from the kitchen.

Brooklyn wasn't painting her nails anymore. Her eyes were closed and her face was scrunched up.

"Are you sure it was your sneeze that hurt?" I asked, turning away from the stove. I turned it off this time, though.

"Um, no," she opened her eyes and sighed. "This is…it's just gonna be fun."

"You think it was one of those, uh…" I had forgotten the word for it. My head felt fuzzy, so I sat down beside her at the table. I was scared, honestly.

"Contraction. Yeah, it hurt. It wasn't fun." She looked down at her hands for a second. "I'm painting my other hand before we go to the hospital."

"Brooklyn!" I said. She just shrugged.

"It takes a long time, okay? To have a baby, I mean. I got some time to finish my nails."

I shook my head at her. "Can't you paint them in the car? I swear you're gonna give me a heart attack one day."

"Fiiiiine," she drew the sound out. "Will you put my shoes on for me, though?"

Ever since Brooklyn was about six and a half months pregnant, she had a hard time getting her shoes on. It was hard for her to bend over with her big belly. So usually I would put them on for her.

"Yes, because you can't just sit at your table and do your nails when you're having a baby."

"I do what I want, boy," Brookie called after me. When I got back from our bedroom with her shoes, Brooklyn had her head resting on the table, covered by her arms.

"You know how I told you I was gonna die from sneezes? I changed my mind, now I'm dying. This hurts." There were tears in her eyes when she picked her head up. She held her arms out sadly.

"Hey, you'll be okay," I held her for a little while. I could tell when she was in pain because her little hands would grip my shirt. "We gotta go, though."

"I know," her voice sounded little and scared. "Put my dumb shoes on."

She held her head in her hands while I got her shoes on for her.

"You good?" I asked her before taking her hands to pull her up to her feet. I had to help her walk to the car, and she didn't want it because she insisted it would hurt more, but I buckled her seatbelt for her, too.

The whole way driving to the hospital, Brooklyn held my hand. Every time she had a contraction, I thought she was liable to _break_ my hand with how hard she squeezed it. She never did paint the nails on her other hand.

"Oh man, this got so bad so fast," she said on the ride there.

* * *

It really did go fast from there. I was ready to be at the hospital for a long time, but that didn't end up happening. I have no idea how Brooklyn managed to do what she did. I wouldn't trade places with a woman about to have a baby for anything.

The whole labor only took seven hours, and I was lucky to be with Brooklyn for all of it. Not all doctors let the fathers stay with their wives while babies were born back then. We had a really good doctor, though. And I'm thankful for that to this day.

Brooklyn's doctor was a woman named Dr. Gard. She had been Dolly's doctor for both Dulce and Anna Maria before she was Brooklyn's doctor.

When Lily was born—and it's a good thing she _was_ a girl, because Brooklyn refused to even think we might have a boy—they let Brooklyn hold her immediately. Later Dr. Gard said it was the exhaustion and hormones that made Brookie not realize something was wrong.

Brookie, she didn't have eyes for anything or anyone but Lily. The baby had come out crying, of course, but quieted down as soon as she was given to her mom. I was pushing Brooklyn's sweaty hair off of her face when I heard Dr. Gard talk to one of the nurses.

"No, don't take the baby from her," Dr. Gard said. I looked over to see Dr. Gard's arms covered up to her elbows in blood. Brookie's blood. "Let her keep the baby, it will keep her distracted."

She saw me looking and shook her head. "Talk to her. Keep her awake if she starts to fall asleep."

For one of the only times in my life, I was thankful I had gone to Vietnam. Being in the war had taught me to stay calm when things went bad. I did what Dr. Gard told me to.

"Hey," I was kind of surprised how normal I sounded. I could hear my heart pounding in my head. "Look at her hair."

I knew that would get Brooklyn's attention. She hadn't noticed yet, but Lily had hair the same exact color that Brooklyn's brother Dallas had. It was almost white-blonde, and Lily had a lot of it.

"It's like Dally's," Brooklyn whispered. She ran her fingers over Lily's hair and her eyelids started to flutter a little.

"Yeah," I told Brooklyn, squeezing her shoulder. I probably squeezed a little too hard, but I needed her to stay awake. She couldn't go to sleep, not if she was losing blood. I knew what would happen if she did. "Just like Dally's, huh?"

She looked up at me, her eyes wide, but then she smiled. "Her eyes are like yours, though. I saw them before she fell asleep."

Lily was asleep, her head resting on Brooklyn's chest. I could see her tiny back moving as she breathed. "I'll have to check that out."

Brooklyn's head nodded forward suddenly. I caught her under her chin and turned her head to face me. "Hey, you stay awake. You cannot go to sleep, not right now. You hear me, Brookie?"

She nodded against my hand and opened her eyes. It looked like it took her a lot of energy just to do that.

"You just look at me, okay, Brookie? Right here. I'll keep talkin', but you gotta keep listenin', too."

It felt like I was talking to her for hours, but I knew that wasn't right. I knew what happened once you started bleeding too much. I had seen men die in five minutes flat. It felt like forever until I heard Dr. Gard say anything to me.

"She's stable now, Mr. Curtis. Let her sleep. She'll be fine now, if we keep a close eye on her." I let Brooklyn's head fall back onto her pillow. She was out in a second. I looked away from her awful pale face.

"She's gonna be okay?" I asked Dr. Gard, almost not believing her. I had never seen anyone's face as white as Brooklyn's. The nurses took Lily out of Brooklyn's arms to be cleaned and weighed.

"She lost a lot of blood," Dr. Gard said. "A hemorrhage, after the baby was born. We stopped the bleeding before it was too much, and before she would have needed a blood transfusion. Your wife got lucky tonight, I won't lie to you. She'll have to stay in the hospital for a few extra days just to make sure everything is okay."

Dr. Gard looked over at Brooklyn. I always liked Brookie's red hair, but right now it was so bright against her pale white face that I almost couldn't stand it. She almost blended in with the white sheets on the hospital bed.

"The good news is that she _will_ recover, and you have a very healthy little daughter. Once your wife is feeling better, though, I want a blood test done. She's incredibly lucky to have survived tonight. I doubt she will remember any of this bad stuff when she wakes up, which is another blessing."

Somehow I managed to not cry until one of the nurses brought Lily back into the room. The nurse explained that they usually had the babies taken to the nursery, but Dr. Gard had said it would be better for Brooklyn to have the baby with her.

"It might give her a little strength and energy to see the baby doing so well."

I held Lily in one arm so I could hold Brooklyn's cold little hand with another. The nurses had brought extra blankets to lay across her, to help keep Brookie warm after the blood loss.

Lily might have had Dally's hair and my eyes, but she looked exactly like Brooklyn. She was the prettiest baby I had ever seen, like a tiny little doll, but I couldn't give her the attention she deserved right then.

Even while I fed her with the bottles the nurses showed me how to make and held her and rocked her, I was looking at Brooklyn more than I was looking at Lily. Brookie hadn't moved once, her head still turned toward me on the pillows. She didn't wake up until the morning, and I don't think I took my eyes off of her for a full minute since she had gone to sleep.

Her eyes were a brighter blue, because of the dark, dark circles under her eyes. It looked like someone had punched and blacked both of her eyes. But Brooklyn still smiled a hug smile once her eyes found me and Lily in the chair beside her.

I let Brooklyn have the baby immediately, so my hands could be free to hug and kiss her. I had to try real, real hard not to cry in front of her. I didn't want her to know, not yet, anyway, when she looked so weak, how close she had come to…dying. I don't even like to think about it.

"I feel like a truck hit me," Brooklyn told me, her voice a hoarse whisper. Sometime during the night, a nurse had brought a pitcher of water that I hadn't touched once. I poured Brookie first one glass, and then another and another. She drank all of them.

"I'm freezing," she said with a shiver. "Isn't it too cold in here for a baby?"

I couldn't help but laugh, even though nothing at all was funny. I kissed her again and again. Even though I didn't sleep a wink, I still had nightmares all night that Brooklyn wouldn't wake up.

Dr. Gard wanted me to tell Brooklyn about what happened after Lily was born. She said it would be better coming from me. But I couldn't tell her, not yet. Not when she had such a big smile on her pale, tired face. Not when she was holding our baby so close and looking so happy.

I didn't want to ruin all of this for her. She really didn't remember. I wanted her to enjoy Lily before I had to tell her.


	17. Chapter Sixteen

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

"So you really almost died?" My cousin, Grace, asked me. Before Lily was born, I don't know if I would have ever used the word 'reliable' to describe my cousin. She sure proved me wrong, though.

"I guess so," I told her, running my finger over Lily's hair. Oh, how her hair made me both happy and sad. Lily's pale blonde hair was silky smooth except for a cowlick in the back. The same cowlick, the same color, that Dally used to have. I never thought I would see it again.

"I don't really remember it."

Soda asked me what I remembered, the day after Lily was born. I thought he was silly. That wasn't even a day ago! How could I not remember? I mean, I did do all the work. I didn't, though, and I just didn't realize that until Soda asked.

What I will always remember, though, is what he told me next:

 _"Of course, I was there," I told him. I was so tired, and I felt so weak. And on top of that, I was freezing. I had to give Lily back to Soda because my hands started shaking. I was scared I might drop her, even though I was still sitting up in bed._

 _"Tell me," Soda said. When he held Lily, she turned her little head so that her cheek rested against his chest as she fell back to sleep. It was clear to see that she already knew exactly who Soda was, and that she loved him._

 _I felt my brow scrunch up. "Well, I was holding Lily, and then…"_

 _But that was it. That's all I could remember. Soda sat on the side of my hospital bed. He laid Lily, all wrapped up in her pink blankets, in between us._

 _"That's all you can remember?" I nodded. I didn't know where this was going, but I didn't like it. "Brooklyn, you, um, you lost a lot of blood. Almost too much blood. Dr. Gard said it was called a hemorrhage…"_

 _I didn't really know what that meant._

 _"But I'm okay," I said. Soda nodded._

 _"Well, yeah, but you don't understand, Brookie. You… you could've died, honey. You almost bled out. They barely got it to stop."_

 _I was already cold, but a chill went through my body._

I did not remember what Soda was telling me. Not at all. And I'm glad I never did, and only had what Soda and Dr. Gard said to go on.

Dr. Gard told me I lost about half of the blood in my body, which was not normal. Or good. She took a little bit more of my blood with a needle, to test it. She said she had a 'hunch', but she wanted to be sure. That test showed that her hunch was right.

According to the test, I was severely anemic, and had very low iron levels. She reckoned I was anemic before I got pregnant with Lily, but the pregnancy and birth had made it worse. Much worse.

I was weak, tired, cold, and shaky because of the blood loss. Dr. Gard said it would probably take _months_ to fully recover, due to the severe anemia, hemorrhage, and having to recover from the birth itself.

Which is why Grace was there. When the news got to her, she offered to come stay with us and help me with Lily until I felt better. Really, Grace was just babysitting me. Three weeks after I had Lily, and I still felt tired and weak all of the time.

"That's why I have to take those stupid, huge iron tablets," I told her, scrunching up my face. I hated how the tablets tasted, but I guess they were working. Soda thought they were, anyway. I was a little less pale than I had been.

"Aren't you impressed with me?" Grace asked. "I bet you thought I didn't know anything about cleaning house or cooking."

I barely had enough energy to take care of Lily. Grace had been picking up my slack since I was sent home from the hospital.

"Not nearly as impressed as Two-Bit," I teased her. "I think you converted him from chocolate cake to those fudge brownies you made the other day."

Grace was sitting in my living room floor, folding laundry. Even something simple like that tired me out lately. Lily and I were sitting on the couch. My little Lily Bloom had just fallen asleep. I snuggled her closer to me and kissed her cheek.

Speaking of Two-Bit, he walked in the door just a second later.

"Isn't it passed your nap time, kid?" He asked, ruffling my hair as he walked past me. I stuck my tongue out at him and he covered his mouth like he was shocked and offended. "Some manners you're gonna end up teaching that precious little baby."

Two-Bit wasn't wrong. I was usually asleep by this point in the day, but I was trying very hard to stay awake through a whole day. I just really wanted to feel normal again.

"You wanna hold the precious little baby?" I laughed at the over-the-top scared face Two-Bit pulled. He would talk to Lily and make her smile, but he refused to hold her. Two-Bit held her once, and, in his words, he 'felt like her head was gonna to fall off'. He made Soda take her back after holding her for just a second. Two-Bit decided he would hold her when she wasn't 'breakable' anymore.

"Sissy," I told him, trying not to yawn so it wouldn't give him the satisfaction. Two-Bit stretched out so that he took up the rest of the couch.

"Babies are unnatural," Two-Bit said, folding his arms underneath his head. "They shouldn't be so floppy."

Ponyboy had tried to explain to Two-Bit that babies didn't have any muscle strength, but Two-Bit had just waved him off. He had already decided he would wait until Lily was older and stronger to be her friend.

This was the routine of our days. Two-Bit got off of work an hour before Sodapop did, and he would come and bum around my house until Soda was home. Then Two-Bit would take Grace out for a while.

When Soda got home an hour after Two-Bit did, he always did the same thing. First, he took his shoes off, because I'm pretty sure Soda secretly hated wearing shoes. And since Two-Bit was there, Soda usually answered Two-Bit's questions, such as:

"Why do you wear a sock on your not-foot?" Or something like that. Soda would answer his question quickly, before kissing first me and then Lily. Then Soda always held Lily for a little while, because he hadn't got to see her all day.

Soda really loved our baby. He insisted he needed some 'Lily time' before cooking dinner.

I felt very spoiled. Everyone was doing pretty much everything for me. The only thing I really did was hang out with Lily—not that I was complaining about that. I loved spending time with our baby, but I was also worried everyone would think I was being lazy.

I was lucky to have Soda as my husband and Lily's father, though. I mean, I was pretty spoiled by Soda long before we were even married, but now he was really going out of his way to take care of me and Lily. On the day we came home from the hospital, he actually washed and brushed my hair for me, because I didn't even have the energy to do that.

There's no way I would have gotten through the first six months of Lily's life without Soda and Grace.


	18. Chapter Seventeen

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

"Do you pay rent here, you hobo?" Steve asked, trailing behind Soda as they walked through the front door. Two-Bit was trying to teach Grace to play card games at the kitchen table. I had Lily laying out on a blanket, letting her squirm around. She was two months old, and a very active baby.

Lily already figured out how to roll over. She liked to wave her hands around and kick her little feet. And she was a _happy_ baby, too. She definitely got Soda's personality. I had my hands held out just a little bit above her feet. Everytime she managed to kick one of my palms, she would laugh.

According to Dr. Ponyboy, as we had all taken to calling him, such young babies didn't usually smile and laugh. But Darry was four years older than Sodapop, and he said he remembered Soda being just as happy as a baby as Lily was.

"I didn't know what a crying baby was until this kid came along," Darry had said, clapping Ponyboy on the shoulder. "It was a great two and a half years."

Just a few years ago, Darry's teasing would have put Pony in a sour mood. But now he just smiled sheepishly at his older brother's winking.

"Didn't you know?" I asked after Soda had plopped down beside me on the floor and given me a kiss. "That's our oldest child, Keith, but he only answers to Two-Bit. I'm gonna claim him on our taxes this year."

"And you're watchin' _The Jetsons?_ " Steve asked, pulling a face. He stretched out, long and lean, on our couch. "What kind of household are you runnin' here, Brooklyn?"

For all his griping, he didn't bother trying to turn the channel on the television. I liked _The Jetsons_ , and besides, Two-Bit still watched _Mickey Mouse_ , so I didn't want to hear it.

"Hi, pretty baby," Soda cooed to Lily. She was already a complete daddy's girl. Lily definitely knew exactly who Soda was. While she was always a happy baby, she always got excited as soon as she saw him or heard his voice.

Lily started to wave her arms and kick her legs harder, she was so excited. Everyone said Lily looked like me, but when she smiled, she was all Sodapop. Then she rocked her little body until she rolled over, so she could be closer to him.

"You're a mess, baby girl." As soon as Soda picked her up and laid her on his shoulder, Lily snuggled her cheek against him.

"Let me see that kid, Pony was hoggin' her last time I was here." Now here was a tricky thing. With his one leg, Soda didn't always trust himself with the baby. He managed so well with the fake leg that sometimes I really forgot he had it. But one thing he always struggled with was getting up from sitting in the floor. He needed at least one hand to help steady himself as he stood.

So he gave Lily back to me, then stood up, then took her back to give to Steve. It was a process for sure. I don't think either of us even really gave much thought to Soda's leg and how it would make his being a father different.

Some days, his leg still hurt him a lot. I knew he really hated to wear it when the phantom leg pains happened. I felt so guilty, because three months on I was still struggling, and Soda would leave his leg on even when it was driving him crazy.

Lily had a nursery, but for now she was sleeping in a bassinet in our room with us. The bassinet was close to Soda's side of the bed, because I could get up anytime I wanted. It was uncomfortable for him to try to wear his leg to sleep. I just had to do it slowly, because if I stood up too fast I would get dizzy and see black spots.

Neither me or Grace had told Soda, because we didn't want him to worry, but I almost fainted one day while holding Lily when I stood up too fast. Grace caught me, though, and we figured no harm, no fowl.

I knew Soda didn't blame me at all, but I was trying to get better as fast as possible. I did know for a fact he got frustrated with himself when he couldn't do something easily, and even though that's why Grace was staying with us, he was too proud to ask some days.

Once Steve had Lily laid out on the couch beside him, telling her all the reasons why he was her best 'uncle', Soda held his hands out to me. He pulled me up off the floor and into a hug.

"How do you feel today?" He whispered to me.

"A little bit better." I told him that every day, even on days when my head pounded and my hands shook and Grace had to do most everything for me.

It was a bold-faced lie sometimes, and I knew that, but it was something I had learned from Ponyboy years ago. After Dally and Johnny died and Soda had been drafted, we were both pitiful and down in the dumps. Ponyboy told me, _'you gotta fake it sometimes, but I swear after a while the faking it becomes true'_.

"If I leave my favorite child with y'all hooligans, will she be alive when I get back?" Soda asked.

Dr. Gard wanted me going on short walks every day, to help build my strength back up. We went every day after Soda got off of work, but it was another hot summer. Too hot to have Lily out, even in the evening. And after the sunset, the mosquitoes came out, so she couldn't even go with us then.

"Don't worry, I'll holler if they get to mistreatin' me," Two-Bit waggled his eyebrows.

"She'll be golden," Steve added. "Uncle Steve will protect her from idiots."

"What both of them meant to say is, if anything happens, _I'll_ be here to take care of it," Grace said, throwing down her hand of cards on the table and then sweeping the M&M's she and Two-Bit were using to bet towards her. It was the first winning hand I had seen from her all day.

We never walked very far. Usually to Darry and Charlotte's house and back, which was only two blocks away. That was about all that I could handle. The exercise and sun really was good for me, though. A lot of the time, I didn't feel warm all day until our walks.

"I have some good news for you," Soda told me that day. I looked up at him to see his brown eyes shining in the sunlight.

"And what might that be, Mr. Curtis?" I asked, making him smile. _Exactly_ the same as Lily's smile. It made my heart so happy to see either one of them smile.

"Well, Mrs. Curtis," he called me that all the time, just because he liked to say it, even after almost five years of marriage. "I know how sad it made you to have to say no to taking your job back."

It really did. There was a plan that I would split the work week—only four days—with another secretary. That way we would each work two days, which would give us some extra money, which we could have used after my having to stay a few extra days in the hospital. Not to mention the regular doctor's visits Mrs. Gard insisted on.

I felt guilty about that, too. Not being able to help in any way. Almost dying is expensive. I was so happy that Soda's medical bills had been paid for since it was a war injury.

"What's the good news part?" I teased him. We were almost to Soda's childhood home, which meant we would be turning around soon.

"Well…wanna work for Darry?" I felt my eyebrows scrunch together. Darry did construction—he had xpanded it from just roofing houses to doing all sorts of building jobs. He made good money, too, considering he was the owner. Still, he didn't want to sell the Curtis house.

None of the boys wanted that. Tulsa was slowly getting better. It wasn't nearly as rough as it used to be in our neighborhood. There was no reason to sell the only thing they had left of their parents.

The house had never looked better, either. Darry had worked his wonders on it. When we got to his house, I looked at the new front door and shutters that Charlotte had painted navy blue.

"I can't even make dinner without wanting to take a nap," I reminded Soda. "How would I work for Darry?"

"Not the building stuff," he explained. Darry got a lot of business, because he was good at what he did and kept his crew quick on the jobs. "He needs someone to keep track of money and stuff, profit and expenses he said, and you're good at math. That's part of what you did at the dentist office, right? And you can do it at home, with Lily."

Darry was better at math than I was. I knew he could do it on his own. But I think Darry knew we were struggling with money a little. He also knew Soda wouldn't say yes to money as a loan…but money for me working for him…well, that was a little different.

I smiled. I don't think Soda saw through his brother the way I did.

"Sure," I told him. "I'll work for Darry."

It would be extra money, and it wasn't like I didn't have time on my hands. Lily was an easy baby and Grace was there with me all day every day. If exercise could make my body stronger, maybe doing math would make my mind stronger and I wouldn't want to nap all day every day.


	19. Chapter Eighteen

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

When Lily was six months old, my iron levels were finally at a normal place and I felt completely fine. But Grace lived with us for a couple more months, because once I was better she got herself a job. So she could get an apartment, in Tulsa, because things were going well with Two-Bit.

I knew it, forever ago, when we were all teenagers. It just took them a while to figure it out. Luckily, Karen really loved Grace, too, so they got an apartment together.

Not that anyone would guess it, because Grace was still at my house all the time. So was Karen, Two-Bit, Steve, Evie, Curly, Pony…if it weren't for Lily, it would look like nothing had change in years. And I loved that it was still that way.

Lily started talking when she was eleven months old. I mean, most of it was gibberish, but she had three words she could say clear as day: Mama, Dada, and hi. That little girl told _everyone_ hi. Everyone.

It was her greeting every morning for me and Soda. _Hi, Mama. Hi, Dada._ We felt real special about that until we realized it didn't matter if Lily knew the person or not. Complete strangers got smiley hi's from our baby.

The only other thing anyone could make out in her babbling was the letter _p._ She would sit and say it over and over again. _Puh-puh-puh-puh._ I figured she was working on saying 'Ponyboy', because he was by far her favorite uncle.

While her talking was adorable, there was a time or two when Lily's friendliness was a little out of hand. Like one spring day just a week before her first birthday, when we joined Karen, Evie, and Grace for lunch.

Lily was sitting on my lap, destroying the cracker I had given her. Crumbs covered the table in front of her. I don't think any of it actually made it to her mouth.

"Look at this great, big mess, my little love," I told her, pointing to her piles of crumbs. Lily only tipped her head back to smile at me and crinkle her little nose. Now that it was spring and the weather was nice, Lily had been spending a lot of time outside. She was starting to get the same freckles that covered my nose and cheeks.

Evie was in the middle of telling us about how her period was three weeks late. I was only half listening, which I know is bad, but there were only two outcomes to that. Either she was pregnant or just late.

"It might be nothing," Karen tried to reassure her. "Mine has skipped around before. One time it was, like, two months late."

I knew Evie was in a panic, but I couldn't _not_ poke fun at her when she turned to me and asked, "Has yours ever been this late, Brooklyn?"

"Yeah, it was nine months late one time," I told her, trying to keep the laugh out of my voice. I felt Grace smack my leg under the table.

Evie's eyes went wide. She really wasn't thinking straight. "What happened?"

I lifted Lily up off my lap and held her in the air. _That_ is what happened when my period was nine months late.

"Hiiii," Lily said in her sweet little voice, giving Evie a wave and a big smile that showed off the two bottom teeth she had managed to grow.

"Her name's Lily, that's what happened," I teased Evie. She blushed cherry red and rolled her eyes at me.

"You know what I meant!" Evie said. I shrugged.

"That's literally what happened, though. I got a baby out of it."

"Yeah, but you were married."

"Oh, and like you can't be? We're not sixteen anymore, Evie. No one's gonna ship you off to Florida."

It was a dig at our old friend Sandy, who none of us had seen since she was sent to Florida all those years ago. Karen giggled and Grace looked confused. She never met Sandy, so she didn't know why that was funny.

"Am I missing something?" Grace asked.

You know, life has a funny way of sticking things to you. Right when I turned to Grace to explain the joke to her, Lily leaned over in my lap so that she could get the attention of a little boy walking past our table.

When Lily told the little boy hi, he stopped to tell her hi back. And his mother stopped, too. I hadn't been paying attention to either until I felt Karen elbow me in the side. I turned to her and she motioned with her head for me to look behind me. So, I turned the other way and saw a face I hadn't seen in years.

It was like my joke about Sandy had somehow brought her to suddenly appear. She didn't look much different—same blonde hair and China-blue eyes—but she looked just as surprised as I'm sure all of us did.

I was suddenly very aware of my wedding ring on my finger and my daughter on my lap. There Lily was with her father's eyes, living, breathing proof that I had gotten the boy Sandy had offered to leave her child for in that letter so long ago.

"Sandy!" Evie said, the first to speak. "What are you doing here?"

Sandy smiled at all of us. "We came to visit my parents."

There was a wedding ring on Sandy's left hand, but I also had eyes and could do math, and it was obvious the little boy beside her was the baby that got her sent to Florida in the first place. His inky black curls made my mind itch. I had seen hair like that before.

"Brooklyn, is this _your_ baby? I never would've thought you would be the first one of our old friends to have a baby." Sandy smiled at me, and I tried my best to return it. I didn't bother to remind her that _she_ was the first one to have a baby, not me.

"Her name is Lily," I offered. At the sound of her own name, Lily picked her head up, looked at Sandy, and smiled.

"Hiii!" She said, excited that there were new people around. I knew I was done for then. It was unmistakable that Lily had Soda's eyes, but she also had his smile. They looked exactly alike when they smiled.

And I knew Sandy caught on, because as soon as Lily smiled, Sandy's own face turned shocked. I think Sandy forgot there was anyone else there. I could feel Grace watching me while Sandy looked at Lily.

Then Sandy forced a smile and asked, "Lily what?"

It was a sneaky way to find the answer she already knew. I raised an eyebrow at her. It was obvious, but she wanted me to say it. "Lily Curtis."

With her suspicion confirmed, Sandy forced another smile onto her face. "Well, she's beautiful. I'm sorry, but we have to get going. We only stopped in to pick up some food."

She took her son's hand and dragged him away from the table. Lily waved her little hands in a goodbye that went unanswered.

"Okay, now I'm _really_ missin' something!" Grace said, throwing her hands up. "Someone fill me in, please."

The scandal of Sandy appearing made all of us forget about Evie's late period. Karen and Evie both turned to me, but I just shrugged. _One of you tell it_.

Karen took the bait. "That's Sandy. Before everything happened with Johnny and Dally, Sandy used to date Sodapop. _But_ she got pregnant with another guy's baby and her parents sent her off to live with her grandparents in Florida, which is why Brookie made that joke earlier."

Of course, Grace found this all hilarious. Her laughing broke the tension and we all laughed, even Lily. She had no clue what was funny, but she wanted to be in on the joke, too.

"Apparently that was your almost-mommy," Grace leaned over and told Lily in a dramatic whisper. Lily giggled and laid her head on my chest and put her little arms around me. I felt her shake her head at Grace. She didn't say it yet, but Lily also nodded and shook her head for yes and no.

"Okay, but someone else _please_ tell me they thought that little boy looked like Tim Shepard!"

That is what his hair reminded me of. It was the same wild black curls Dally's best friend had.

"Might want to ask Curly about that one, Karen."

After that interesting lunch, Evie and me went to the DX to see Soda and Steve. Lily was almost asleep against my shoulder, but she was fighting it. If she were at home, she would have already been tucked into bed for a nap, but not today. She knew she was going to get to see her daddy.

"How did you know, though?" Evie asked, kicking a little rock as we walked. She was back to talking about her late period.

"Well, do you feel any different?" I asked her. Surely, she hadn't already forgotten my nosebleeds and how tired I was. Evie shrugged beside me. We were only a block away from the DX.

"No…but I mean, it's funny 'cause we just saw her, but I mean, I've been thinking. Like, none of noticed that Sandy was, but you had things going on. So, how are you even supposed to know?"

This time I shrugged. "I guess you really can't, unless you go to the doctor. But, you, know the late period _is_ a pretty big sign."

I was real impressed with Evie's acting skills. As soon as the door to the DX was open, her worried expression was gone. In its place was a big, bright smile for Steve. She ducked into the back where Steve worked on the cars.

"My girls!" Soda said, walking away from where he was doing some kind of paperwork. Lily perked up as soon as he heard her voice. She reached her hands out to him.

"Dada!" Lily cuddled right up to Soda as soon as she was in his arms. He kissed the top of her head and then bent down to kiss me.

"What are y'all doing here?" Soda asked. I smoothed down the back of Lily's dress where it had ridden up to show the little bloomers over her diaper.

"Oh, we were out and about anyway, so we decided to stop by for a visit." Lily wasn't able to fight off the sleep anymore. Her eyes fluttered shut and she fell asleep with her head resting on Soda's shoulder.

A customer walked through the DX door, sending the bell ringing. Soda passed Lily back to me and walked to behind the counter.

"That your family?" The old man asked, nodding his head toward me and Lily. I sat down with her to wait for Evie.

"Sure is," Soda smiled brightly at the man. He returned Soda's smile and nodded.

"Take good care of those girls. Not everyone gets so lucky." Soda winked at me over the old man's head. I smiled back at him.

When Evie came back out, we walked home together. Evie pulled a compact mirror out of her purse and reapplied her lipstick. "Stevie thought the story about Sandy was hilarious."

"Oh, man! That means he'll tell Soda before I get to!" I shifted Lily in my arms. She was still itty bitty for her age, but carrying her for so long was making my arms ache. I reminded myself that we needed to start practicing walking with her.

"That's one perk of Stevie working in the back, no one can interrupt us." Evie gave me a mischievous look and I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah, and that's why your period's late," I teased her. She shook her shoulders like she was cold even though it was a warm spring day.

"Don't remind me."


	20. Chapter Nineteen

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

 ** _-Sodapop-_**

Steve and Evie got married the day after Lily Bloom's first birthday. Why did they choose that day? It was the soonest day that the courthouse had open.

"They're gonna say it's a honeymoon baby," Brooklyn whispered to me while they signed their marriage certificate. We were their witnesses. Evie had given Lily her bouquet to hold, and most of it was ending up in Lily's mouth.

"Man, we shoulda used that one," I whispered back to her. I pulled the flowers out of Lily's mouth and she scrunched up her face at me. She pulled all the same exact faces Brookie did.

Brooklyn shook her head at me and tried not to laugh. "Four years is a long time to be pregnant. _No thank you_."

I felt a little guilty after that I got married without Steve even knowing. Well, that's not true. I told him after we left Tulsa after getting drafted. But still. He was my best friend. I guess I didn't think it was all that special of a thing, to be at your best friend's wedding, until I was at Steve's.

Lily did _not_ want to give the flowers back to Evie. While Brooklyn held her, I had to open her little hands to get them away from her.

"Sorry our kid slobbered all over 'em," Brooklyn said. Lily pouted her lips but she didn't cry. She moved on pretty quick and started playing with Brooklyn's hair. That kid of mine, I didn't know what was up with her, but she almost never cried.

"Aw, she just turned 'em into baby's breath is all," Steve cracked a joke. Evie didn't laugh, but she did smile a nervous kind of smile. After what happened with Brookie, she was real worried over having a baby.

Since Steve and Evie were officially married, Two-Bit decided to throw them a party in place of the wedding they didn't have. But, of course, he decided to use _our_ house for this party. Not that I minded, that's just Two-Bit for you.

Lily was jazzed about it. Even if she was still just a baby, she loved people. She could babble nonstop if you let her, playing at talking with anyone. Especially her uncle Ponyboy.

"Look, your favorite person, Lily," I told her when Ponyboy made it to our house. Lily started to wriggle in my arms, all excited, and reached out to Pony. As soon as Pony had a hold of her, Lily gave him a hug.

She also had this new thing she was doing where she copied Brookie's allergies. If Lily heard her mom sniffing, she would start doing it, too. So now, Lily decided to lay her head on my brother's shoulder and start sniffing.

"Is she sick?" Pony asked, putting his hand on her forehead.

"No," I said, just when Brooklyn had come to check on Lily.

"Is your kid fakin' allergies again?" She asked me. I shrugged and kissed my wife.

"What can I say? She likes attention." And really, Lily did. She ate it up. Darry always called her a ham. According to him, I was the same way as a baby, always showing off somehow.

"Tell your uncle you're just a faker, Lily Bloom," Brooklyn told her, tickling under Lily's chin until she laughed and hid her face on Pony's shoulder.

"Sorry, she's kinda a mess," I told Ponyboy, ruffling Lily's white-blonde hair. Pony was real proud of himself for coming up with Lily's name after seeing her hair. He said her hair and her name matched, since lily flowers can be white.

Two-Bit's big, loud laugh filled up our house. Me and Pony looked over to see him trying to get Steve to chug a beer with him. "You gotta get some hair on your chest before you're a father!"

Steve wiggled away from Two-Bit, laughing. "If I need advice, I think I'll go to Soda…y'know, the actual only father in the room."

"It ain't that hard," I told Steve. "You just gotta keep 'em alive."

I wasn't sure _how_ Steve and Evie thought they were going to pass this baby off as a 'honeymoon baby', like Brooklyn had called it. Everyone knew about the baby, because Evie had told Brookie, Karen, and Grace, and girls can't keep secrets for nothing. I reckoned that little white lie was for their parents.

Even though she was excited about everyone being around, Lily let out a huge yawn. It was getting late, for her anyway.

"Here," I said, taking Lily back from Ponyboy. "I'm gonna take her outside, away from the noise." It was mostly so loud thanks to Two-Bit and his big laugh. But the nights were warmer now, at least warm enough to rock Lily to sleep on the back porch.

I wrapped her in a blanket anyway, because I didn't want to hear it from Brooklyn if Lily _did_ get a cold. I didn't figure it would take her long to fall asleep, though. She already had her head on my shoulder when I walked out the back door.

The day was about Steve and Evie, but I really couldn't believe that Lily was already a year old. A whole year. She wasn't our tiny new baby anymore, even if she was still really little.

She had tiny little teeth and a lot more hair and talked, but wasn't walking yet, because I will admit she was awful spoiled. And she ate real food now, too, but still needed a bottle at bed time. We were working on it. Since Brooklyn worked in that dentist's office for so long, she was worrying over Lily's teeth if she kept the bottle much longer.

"What do you think, sister?" I asked Lily, settling her in my arms. "You're gettin' up there in years, huh?"

"One's not so much," I heard Steve behind me. I didn't know he had followed us out. He sat down by us on the steps. Lily looked over at him and smiled, but she was already starting to fall asleep. Her eyelids were drooping closed.

"I hate to break it to Evie, but I don't think any baby's gonna be as pretty as y'all's."

I shrugged, and when I did, it spooked Lily a little. She jumped and her eyes opened back up, and she fixed me with a look that Brooklyn had surely given me before. It made them both look like Dally.

"You say that now, but wait 'til you have yours. You won't be thinkin' that anymore."

"This is scarier than Vietnam," Steve said, looking down at his hands. I did not like to talk about Vietnam. I was happy to leave it all behind. But Steve wasn't the same way. He needed to talk about it, and he needed to talk to me about it, because I was the only one there.

"Don't I know it," I told him. "Evie'll be fine. Brooklyn's just dramatic." I tried to make a joke, but it was hard to, even with it so far behind us. Before Lily was even born, we had plans to have more than one kid. Now we really weren't so sure.

"I don't know how you can stand it, Sodapop. Havin' a little girl, I mean. Remember what we used to be like?"

"You mean you? Or Two-Bit or Dallas or Curly or Tim?" I asked. "I was an angel."

That made Steve smile. "She's lucky she's got so many uncles around. The only boys ever allowed to even look at her will be the Ponyboys and the Johnnys of the world."

"I take it you want a boy, then?" Steve shrugged.

"I'll be happy so long as everything goes okay. I think I might worry a little less over a boy, though. Besides, if it is a boy, I think I would want to name him after Tommy. Remember him?"

Steve didn't have to ask. I remembered everything about Vietnam, except for losing that dang leg, even if I didn't talk about it.

"Yeah," I told him, holding Lily closer to me. "I do."

I did, even if I didn't want to. Tommy was our age. He had gray eyes and hair that was starting to match even though we were all nineteen when he died. He was our buddy, and a damn good one to have.

Tommy was shot in the head in the middle of laughing. One minute, there was a smile on his face. The next, he didn't have much of a face left.

And a moment after that, I shot the kid who had killed Tommy.

I did _not_ want to think about it, not when I was holding my little girl in my arms, on my best friend's wedding day. "I think he would've got a kick out of that."

I only said something else because I knew Steve was waiting for me to.

"I bet he'd get a kick out of your leg, too." It was a good joke, and it made me laugh, but I couldn't take talking about it. I never could. I stood up carefully.

"I better go put Lily to bed before Brooklyn has my neck for having her outside so long at night."

I laid Lily in her crib inside, and then I stood in her dark room and closed my eyes. I could see Tommy's face in my mind, clear as day, and I pushed it aside. Steve did two more years in Vietnam than I did, and I understood that, but it was hard to listen to. Hard to remember.

Brooklyn, bless her, had come in while I had my eyes closed. She wrapped her arms around me and laid her cheek on my back.

"I thought you fell asleep with her in here," she whispered.

"I just needed some quiet time, too."

"Do I need to ban Steve from talking?" If I were to write the never-ending list of reasons I loved Brooklyn, this would be at the top: she understood. She never pressured. She let Vietnam rest, because she knew that's how I needed to deal with it.


	21. Chapter Twenty

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

To get Lily to walk by herself, we had to trick her. Like, literally trick her. She crawled on time. She could stand fine. And when she was holding onto furniture or someone's hands, she _would_ walk. But she refused to do it by herself.

"Think this'll work?" I asked Soda, bringing Lily into the living room. He came up with the idea. Soda had moved some of the furniture back, so Lily wouldn't have anything to grab onto.

"Are you kidding? She loves this bunny more than she loves us." The little stuffed bunny that was Lily's favorite toy was a first birthday present from Ponyboy. That bunny had gone everywhere with Lily in the last two months.

Soda sat down on one side of the living room, and I sat down with Lily on the other. I stood Lily up on her feet and pointed to Soda.

"Look, Lily," I told her. "Go get your bunny from Daddy."

Lily turned to look at me and held her hand out to me, but I shook my head. "No, baby. You gotta go by yourself."

This made Lily pout her lips and cross her arms. Across the room, Soda laughed before hugging Lily's bunny. "I guess it's my bunny now, huh, Lily Bloom?"

"Hey," Lily said. She had added 'hey' to her list of words recently. 'Hi' was still a greeting, but she only said 'hey' when she didn't like something. "Dada, mine."

'Mine' was another favorite new word.

"Not if you don't come get it," Soda told her. "I'm gonna keep it unless you walk over here."

Lily sighed and stood her ground. But after a few minutes, she got the idea that we weren't kidding, and started taking a step. And then another, and another, and another. She didn't even fall.

"See, you can walk, little faker," Soda told her once Lily was in his lap. She smiled up at him and hugged her bunny. "Now go to Mama."

Now that her gig was up, Lily walked right to me with no problem, showing me her bunny with a big, proud smile.

"You can really play with Dulce and Anna Maria now," I told her. "You can run like they do, and not have to sit and watch."

That little girl of ours was something else. She spent the rest of her day walking and running around the house.

It was summer by then, early June, meaning Ponyboy was back in Tulsa for a few months. He had one year left in college, only because he hadn't been able to choose between majoring in English literature and philosophy. He loved both, but it meant going to college for five years instead of four. Ponyboy didn't mind a bit, though. He loved school.

Since it was summer, that meant he was staying with us. Two-Bit always offered to let Pony stay with him in the summers, but I think both Soda and Pony needed these months together.

It was nice having someone home with me and Lily, too, since Ponyboy worked at night a couple of times a week at one of the movie theaters in town. Soda worked during the day, but when Ponyboy was home for the summer, I had someone to drag along on errands with me and Lily.

"So, when are you going to bring a girl home for us to meet?" I teased Pony one day when he tagged along to go grocery shopping. I turned in time to see his cheeks glow red in a blush.

"C'mon, Brookie, not you, too. All of y'all are always teasing me." It was true. We were. But he had never blushed like that before when I had asked.

"Okay, so what's her name?"

"How do you know?" He asked, very much still embarrassed.

"I know everything, just ask Lily." But the truth was that I just knew Ponyboy. We spent a lot of time together after Johnny and Dally died. He couldn't lie to me if he tried. "Huh, sister?"

Lily was sitting in my grocery basket looking at a picture book, but she picked her head up to smile and nod at Ponyboy.

"Her name is Elayne, but she goes by Ellie," Ponyboy finally grumbled after a while.

"And how long have you been dating her?"

"Since last fall." That made me stop in the aisle and turn on my heel to Pony.

"Ponyboy Michael Curtis," I said, in what everyone had started to call my 'mom voice'. "That's almost a whole _year_ , and you haven't told us?"

Ponyboy was staring down at his shoes. "Well…I'll tell you when we get home, okay?"

I thought that was weird, but I just shrugged. Whatever Ponyboy wanted. I wasn't going to let him forget it, though, so after we were home and Lily was down for her nap, I brought it up again.

"So, this Ellie," I spooked Ponyboy when I spoke. He had gone to read on the porch while I got Lily to go to sleep. Pony jumped, almost dropping his book.

"Well, um," Ponyboy stumbled over his words. He put his bookmark in between the pages and set the book down. "I just, I get worried…thinking about bringing her here, I mean. Ellie's African American."

I felt my eyebrows scrunch together. "So?"

This did not matter to me, or either of Pony's brothers, or any of our friends. I knew Ponyboy knew that, so I couldn't understand why he wouldn't tell her about us.

"I know y'all don't care, but think about the rest of Tulsa. Think about Johnny. Don't tell me you forgot already." With Johnny's black hair and eyes and his dark skin, he was one of the darkest people in Tulsa. We were a Southern state. We were slow to change, despite how much the rest of the nation had.

We didn't know, and Johnny didn't either, what exactly his race was. His mom had all the same dark features as Johnny did, but none of us ever felt the need to strike up conversation with the woman. Neither did Johnny. I knew what Ponyboy meant, though. I remembered how hateful people, and not just Socs, could be to Johnny.

I couldn't count how many times Dallas had gotten into fights over that for Johnny.

"Your college isn't this way?" I asked. "It's in Oklahoma, too."

Ponyboy shook his head, though. "College is so different, Brookie, I swear. It's a whole different world."

We were quiet for a little while. I almost pointed out that Aunt Dolly's husband never had any trouble even though he was Spanish, but I knew that wouldn't help. His Spanish features were fair, and only Esteban's name and accent gave him away.

"It's changing here, too. I mean, not very quickly, but just look at the neighborhood. When is the last time you heard sirens or gunshots?"

Tulsa was getting better. It really was. But I knew why Ponyboy was scared.

"Nothing would happen to her with all of us here," I promised Ponyboy. "You know none of the boys would let it."

I had Ponyboy there, and he knew it. "Yeah, I know, but I would hate myself if anything happened."

"Is she from Oklahoma?" I asked, but Ponyboy shook his head.

"Her family lives in Texas."

"That's not so far," I told him. "Is she still in school?"

"Yeah," Ponyboy said with a nod. "She's a couple of years younger than me."

"Then when school starts, I want Ellie at my house when you come and visit on weekends."

Ponyboy smiled a huge smile that had the 'thank you' in it that he didn't say.

"Yes, ma'am," was what he chose to say instead.

"Good boy," I told him, ruffling his hair. Ponyboy didn't grease it anymore, but he still kept it carefully styled, and I knew that would annoy him. "Now finish your book."

* * *

 **A/N:** A little different, I know, but I've always had it in my head that Brooklyn and Ponyboy would be good friends since they are close in age and the most central to Johnny and Dally's deaths, so I wanted to show that...and also set Pony up for a girlfriend ;)


	22. Chapter Twenty-One

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

Karen was my best friend, and Grace my favorite cousin, but after Evie got pregnant, we spent a lot of time together. I was the only one who had a baby, after all. I mean, Evie did still have her mother, something I didn't, but she seemed to like to ask me questions.

"Does it hurt?" Evie asked me when she was four months pregnant. Our pregnancies were different in almost every way possible. I was sick, thanks to the anemia, whereas Evie was glowy and healthy. I didn't even show until I was almost six months along—Lily was a tiny baby, and she was still petite. Evie already had a belly.

"Well, _yeah_ ," I told her. "A baby comes out of your lady parts. Of course it hurts."

This made Grace shiver. Grace was over all the time. She loved Lily, probably because we all spent so much time together when Lily was a newborn. I'm pretty sure she came to see Lily more than she came to see me, not that I minded.

At the moment, Grace and Lily were sitting in the kitchen floor and painting together.

"This all sounds awful," Grace said, pulling a face. " _No thank you_."

The color drained out of Evie's face and I glared at Grace, but my cousin only shrugged. "It's not as bad as you think it will be, though."

"But you had Lily fast, didn't you?" I nodded. This was true. I was only in labor with Lily for a handful of hours, and she was born easily, but I paid for it later. "My mom said she was in labor with me for a _whole day_."

"They offer you painkillers, though." I didn't have any with Lily. The huge needle they use was terrifying to me.

"Oh, they do? So it might not be so bad, then?" Evie's face brightened up, but I could only shrug. I didn't want to make her any promises that might not be true. "You haven't had another one, though."

"Lily's only a year old!" I laughed. It wasn't like years and years and years had passed.

"Yeah, but Lily's like the perfect baby," Evie argued. "Why wouldn't you want more like her?"

I just shook my head and rolled my eyes. _I_ definitely thought my baby was perfect, with her daddy's eyes and wavy pale blonde, fairytale hair. Lily was a happy, sweet girl who has never known anything but love.

The very selfish part of me would say that I loved Lily so much that I wasn't sure I wanted another baby. Would I still love Lily as much? Would I love a new baby as much as I already loved Lily?

The answer I gave Evie, though, was about my anemia and the hemorrhage after Lily was born. That's what Soda worried about, if we were to have another one. He's a better person than I am, but I always knew that.

"I guess that makes sense," Evie said slowly. "You don't think that will happen to me, do you?"

"Probably not, but I'll deal you some iron pills if you want." Grace laughed, and since someone else was laughing, Lily started to laugh, too. She always laughed, even when she didn't know the joke.

"Man, maybe you are a bad influence, Brooklyn." I sent Grace a fake-offended look while Lily came running to me to show off her painting.

"Who called me a bad influence?" I asked Grace, before telling Lily we would hang the painting up on the icebox to show her daddy later.

"Aunt Jeanine. Remember her? Such a sunshine-y lady." I rolled my eyes at that. Of course I remembered Aunt Jeanine. She never much liked me or Dally, all because our mother killed herself and that's the worst thing you can do in Aunt Jeanine's mind.

"Why am I a bad influence?" I re-tied the little ribbon belt on Lily's dress. It was brown and green plaid, and I had made it out of one of Soda's old shirts.

"Because Lily exists." I couldn't help but laugh at that, and so did Evie.

"Does she not know I'm married?"

"You got married at seventeen and kept it a secret for two years. Shameful." There was really no pleasing with our Aunt Jeanine. I hadn't seen her in years, and she had never met Soda or Lily, but I guess she thought she still had a say in our lives.

"Lucky for me, then, that mine and Stevie's parents believed we got pregnant right after getting married." I don't know _how_ their parents really believed that. Maybe it was wishful thinking.

"You smoke weed cigarettes and I'm the bad influence. Lordy." I rolled my eyes and taped Lily's painting up while she bounced in excitement beside me.

"Dada-Dada-Dada," Lily said in a sing-song. She was such a daddy's girl.

"That's sickening," Grace teased. "I thought you were bad, with your moon-eyes for Sodapop. Now there's two of you fawning over him in this world."

"We're big Sodapop fans around here," I told her, lifting Lily up to kiss her on the cheek.

"No, they are sickening," Ponyboy said, walking into the kitchen and rubbing his eyes. Some nights, he worked nearly into the morning if he was scheduled to close down the theater.

"If we woke you up, that's Evie and Grace's fault," I told him. "They haven't mastered the art of tiptoeing like me and Lily have."

I had taught Lily how to tiptoe as a joke, but now she did it every day until she saw that Ponyboy was awake. Lily liked to get up _early,_ too.

"She's not going to love either of us after today, Pony," I told him. "We're gonna have to take Lily for her one-year s-h-o-t-s." Lily hated shots. She always had. And I hated taking her to get them.

"Lord have mercy on you two, then." Grace said. She knew how Lily could scream when she got shots. Grace had gone with me when Lily was just a tiny baby to get her first rounds of shots.

"Why did you spell it?" Evie asked. Then her eyes widened. "Babies have to get sh—"

I sent her a look and shook my head. Ponyboy cut her off before she could finish the word.

"We spelled it because she's smart and she remembers getting them and yes, they do."

"How many this time?" Grace asked. My stomach hurt just thinking about taking Lily in. With how much she had grown, it would probably take both me and Ponyboy to keep her still enough to get the shots.

"Four," I told her. Two in each leg.

I was _not_ excited for sure. And I was right not to be anywhere near excited, because Lily hated it just like I knew she would. Oh, how she cried broke my heart, and I was sure it broke Pony's, too. It was written all over his face.

My poor baby got a fever from the shots, too. Even though she was so hot, she wanted to be held. I sat with her in Soda's arm chair in the living room. It had been hours and Lily still had tears streaming down her red cheeks.

"Owie, Mama," she would say between her shaky little breaths.

"I know, baby. I'm sorry." I was used to the after-shots routine, but it had turned Ponyboy into a nervous mess. He sat wringing his hands, watching as I failed to rock Lily to sleep. She was being stubborn and fighting her nap, as mad and upset as she was about getting the shots.

"I didn't think it would be _that_ bad," Ponyboy said. "I never even heard her cry before today."

It was probably true, too. Lily was such a happy baby that she hardly ever cried, only when she wasn't feeling good, really. Luckily, she was also a healthy baby, and was hardly ever sick, either.

"She just hates them," I told him. I ran my fingers through Lily's hair. Sometimes that helped her go to sleep. "I mean, I don't blame her. I don't like them either."

It took over an hour to get Lily to sleep. Her little face was hot where her cheek rested on my chest, but I didn't dare to move. Ponyboy had to fix supper while Lily slept and I tried my best not to move so I wouldn't wake her.

To be honest, I was half asleep myself by the time Soda got home. When he bent over to kiss me on the head, it startled me back awake.

"She had a hard time with it again, huh?" he whispered and I nodded.

"I think Pony had a harder time, though," I said, trying to smile. I let Soda take Lily from me, and she barely cracked her eyes open.

"Owie, Dada," she mumbled when she saw that Soda had her. She snuggled her head onto his shoulder.

"I know, sister. You'll be okay, baby." I did smile, watching Soda with our little daughter. It made my heart feel bright in my chest to see how much he loved her. Oh, and I had thought I loved Soda before our little daughter came into the world. Having Lily in our lives made me love Soda a hundred times more than I already did.


	23. Chapter Twenty-Two

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

 ** _-Sodapop-_**

Lily stopped sleeping in our room when she started sleeping through the night. But sometimes, she would walk into our room in the middle of the night. I would feel her little hand patting my cheek.

"Up, Daddy," she would say. A few months after she turned one, she started calling me 'daddy' instead of 'dada'. I would reach over the edge of the bed and lift her up and settle her into the bed between me and Brookie.

"Mama sleep?" Lily would ask in what she thought was a whisper. It wasn't a whisper—she just said it in a lower, not quieter, voice.

"Yeah, Mama's sleepin'," I would tell her in a real whisper. Lily would smile at me in the dark.

"Wub Mama." Instead of saying 'I love you', Lily would say 'wub you'. Wub Mama. Wub Daddy.

"Yeah, I love Mama, too." Lily didn't want to sleep, she wanted to play. I would have to lay her down and tuck her into the blankets. After kissing her on the forehead, I would tell her to go to sleep.

I don't know how Brooklyn always knew, what with her being asleep, but she would always roll over toward Lily and pull her close. Lily would laugh but snuggle against Brooklyn and fall back to sleep.

Sometimes I would go back to sleep with them. But sometimes I would stay up for a little while. It was always fun to watch Lily and Brooklyn together. Lily was just a smaller Brooklyn, with pale blonde hair and brown eyes instead of strawberry blonde and blue.

Especially when they were asleep, they looked exactly alike. I always knew exactly how lucky I had gotten when I had Brooklyn and Lily with me.

* * *

Lily was a one and a half years old before she ever noticed that I had a different leg than she did. We were playing on the floor, both of us in sock feet. Lily was getting a little crazy.

Brooklyn probably would have killed me if she saw how I was letting Lily jump off the edge of the couch. I caught her every time, but Brookie always got antsy when she thought we were playing too rough. I knew she didn't think I would hurt Lily, but she was just so little.

Lily laughed and jumped, and that time she fell just a little too short for me to fully catch her. Her feet landed on my legs and I barely got a hold of her dress before she went tumbling.

"You're getting too crazy there, Lily Bloom," I told her, but she wasn't paying attention to me. Her laugh ended short and she was stomping her little feet on my shins. I could feel it on my real leg, of course, but Lily looked like she was trying to figure something out.

I let her tap her feet and shook my head. She was a funny little thing. After a few minutes, she stepped off my legs and started pushing up my jeans. I watched her eyes get big and her hands pat my legs.

"Oh, Daddy!" Lily said, like she thought I had never noticed my legs were different. She sat back and held her own legs out and looked between mine and hers.

I was afraid she was going to cry. I really was scared, sitting on the floor and waiting to see what she would do. But I was real lucky I had a happy baby girl, and so instead she just laughed.

"You're a mess," I told her when she threw herself back into my arms. "And it's your naptime."

Lily pouted, but I picked her up and threw her over my shoulder anyway, making her laugh some more. Brooklyn always let Lily take naps in our room instead of her own. So I laid her down in our bed and Lily was out in just a few minutes. She always tried to pretend she wasn't tired when naptime rolled around, but we knew better.

I went outside to find Brooklyn hanging up laundry in the fall sunshine. She had her back to me, but I wrapped my arms around her waist and kissed her cheek.

"I'm gonna pretend I didn't see you letting Lily jump off the couch through the window," she said, but she was smiling. I forgot the living room window was open.

"Don't I get some points for getting her to sleep on time for her nap?"

"I reckon you can have a few. Now are you gonna help me hang this up or just watch like a lazy hood?"

I laughed and pulled a sheet out of her basket. "Hey, now. My name's not Two-Bit. Did I tell you about Darry and Charlotte?"

Brooklyn peeked at me from behind a line of clothes. She raised an eyebrow, like _she_ was Two-Bit.

"Charlotte finally got pregnant. On purpose," I added to the end of my sentence. That made Brooklyn laugh.

"Oh, what responsible adults they are," she joked. We both loved Lily more than anything, but she wasn't planned. Steve and Evie's baby definitely wasn't either. "Lily will be excited. She gets mad every time she sees Evie and the baby isn't here yet."

Lily would have to wait two more months before Steve and Evie's baby was born. They had a boy in November of '71, and Steve really did name him Tommy. Well, Thomas, but we were all calling him Tommy.

He looked like Steve with the same dark curls and green eyes. Lily loved him.

"Baby, baby, baby," she kept saying, doing a little dance around Steve's living room. She would stop to run her finger over his hair or sometimes she would kiss his cheek.

"That there is the only boy you're allowed to marry," I told Lily. She only laughed, but Brooklyn shook her head at me.

"You couldn't even tell her no when she said she 'wubbed' the neighbor's kittens." Brooklyn wasn't wrong. We had a little calico kitten named Patches now, but Lily called her Kitty, mostly because she couldn't say 'Patches' yet.

I shrugged back at her. Brooklyn liked the kitten too, even though she still scolded me about letting Lily just pick one up and bring it home. I asked our neighbor first, at least.

I watched Brookie's face when Evie passed the baby to her. She looked down at little Tommy and then glanced over at Lily. Her face didn't change, but I could see the color shift in her eyes. _When had our baby gotten so big?_

Lily would be two-years-old come April. That was hard enough for me to grasp, let alone Brookie who had actually carried Lily.

Later that same night, I found Brooklyn watching Lily as she slept in her bed. I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her on the cheek.

"I didn't realize how much she's grown," Brooklyn said. Her voice almost sounded sad. She reached out a hand and smoothed Lily's hair away from her face.

"I hear they're liable to do that," I told her. I could practically feel the eye roll even if I could see it. "I know what you mean, though."

It was weird to think that the little girl that was quickly out-growing her crib used to be a tiny baby. I mean, she was big enough already to climb over the bars. That's how she ended up in our bed so much.

I don't know how long we stood there watching our not-so-little baby sleep.


	24. Chapter Twenty-Three

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

At Thanksgiving, Ponyboy had left his knit hat at our house by mistake. Lily wore it every single day after he left.

"Reckon we should mail that to Pony?" Soda asked. We were eating stove-popped popcorn while we watched Lily play around the living room. Outside, the first snow of the season was falling.

"Reckon you can get it away from Lily?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at my husband. Soda watched Lily twirl, her skirt floating around her.

"I don't think that's a battle I would want to fight," he admitted. Soda brushed my hair off my shoulder and kissed my neck. I liked these cozy nights when it was just the three of us. Soon—in just two days—Ponyboy would be in Tulsa again for his school's Christmas break.

I managed to bug him enough that he was finally bringing his girlfriend with him. Ellie. Lily had been 'helping' me clean the last few days. By helping, I mean she followed me room to room and _tried_ to help, but really made a bigger mess each time. She was so proud of herself for helping, though, that I told her thank you every time.

"Mama," Lily said, suddenly stopping her twirl. She had made herself dizzy and nearly toppled ever. "Need baby."

I rolled my eyes. This had become Lily's favorite thing to say since she met Tommy.

"You'll see Tommy in a few days," I told her. I could hear Soda snickering at my burning cheeks. I cut my eyes on him, but he just thought it was too funny that our kid was trying to convince us to give her a sibling.

Since I didn't give Lily the answer she wanted, she tried again with Soda. "Daddy, need baby."

Soda laughed and lifted Lily into his lap, offering her some popcorn. She stuck her tiny hand into his bowl and, in my opinion, stuffed too much popcorn into her cheeks.

"Chew that careful," I told her, watching her little jaw work. She looked up at Soda with those eyes that exactly matched his. Once she swallowed down all that popcorn, she told him again that she 'needed' a baby.

Soda looked over at me and smirked.

"Patches is a baby," Soda reminded her. Lily's little kitten was only a handful of months old. She had been playing with Lily, but had tired quickly and fell asleep in the middle of Lily's playing.

Lily turned her little body to look at Patches, curled up on the floor. She nodded her head, making her little pigtails bounce. "Kitty baby."

I thought maybe Soda had soothed her with that, but then Lily's little lips pursed into a pout.

"No Tommy baby." I threw my hands up, making both Soda and Lily laugh. Lily always laughed when someone else did, even if she didn't know the joke.

"Your Aunt Charlotte's going to have a baby like Tommy." It was my last-ditch effort. Something had to give and make Lily happy. Lily's eyebrows shot up so that they disappeared beneath her bangs. We hadn't told her about Darry and Charlotte's baby yet. The baby was due to be born in May.

"Oh! Okay!" Lily said after a long moment. She smiled brightly before picking up Soda's hand and kissing it. Then she laid her cheek on the back of his hand and held it there for a second before slipping out of his lap.

"Your kid's a mess," I told Soda. He pulled me closer to him, and I laid my head on his shoulder.

"Yeah, but I figure she gets that from you."

Lily was still asking for a baby a few weeks later when Ponyboy and Ellie got to Tulsa. Ellie was a real doll. I had never seen red lipstick look as pretty on someone as it did with Ellie's dark skin. She would shake her curls towards Lily's face, tickling her cheeks and making her laugh.

I liked Ellie's accent. It was sweet and slow, like honey. She was from Georgia. At night, Ellie would hold Lily in her lap and sing old Southern hymns to her. I liked her songs better than any Catholic hymns I had heard my own mother sing.

"Po-ny," Lily called through the house. She always said Pony's name in two parts. She said Ellie's with w's in place of the l's, the same way she said her own name as 'Wiwy'.

Ellie was asking me about New York. It was somewhere she had always wanted to go. Lily was supposed to be napping, but she was far too excited about Pony being there.

"What's up, buttercup?" Ponyboy called from the kitchen. That always made Lily laugh. Lily walked into the living room with Pony's hat pulled over her head.

She refused to give it back, no matter how many times Ponyboy asked for it. After the first few days, he stopped bothering with asking for the hat. It was Lily's now.

Ponyboy was already reading through his textbooks for his last semester of college. He always took school so seriously. From the living room, I could see Lily walk into the kitchen where Pony sat at the table. She laid her head in his lap and smiled up at him.

"Pway me," she said sweetly. "In snow." It had been snowing every other day for weeks. Some of the snow piles were twice as tall as Lily herself.

"He talks about her all the time," Ellie told me, nodding at Lily tugging on Pony's hand.

"She talks about him, too. Lily's got him wrapped around her finger and she knows it." Ponyboy shut his book and helped Lily into her little pink jacket and white mittens. He pulled on his own coat and gloves before Lily slipped her tiny hand into his.

"Pony talks about you, too," I told Ellie with a smile. "He never much talked about girls when we were in high school."

Ellie was new to our world. Charlotte, at least, was from Tulsa. She had seen in the papers all that had happened with the Curtis family long before she ever met Darry. I didn't know how much Ellie had been told, and I was afraid to let something slip that Pony hadn't said.

"Sounds like he didn't have much time," Ellie said, taking a sip of the hot chocolate I had made for her. "I don't even know how he has time to date me."

 _He wasn't happy enough to date much_ , I thought to myself, but I didn't say it out loud to Ellie. Between his parents, Johnny, and Dally dying and Soda being shipped off to war, I always wondered how Ponyboy kept himself upright. He had always been sensitive, and all of those things happening so fast hit him hard.

"He thinks you and his brother are what everyone should strive for in life." This made me blush. I turned my eyes to look out the window and watched Ponyboy lift a laughing Lily from a snow drift.

"Pony gets those ideas from his books," I told her.

"He makes it sound very romantic," Ellie said. When I looked at her I could see that her dark eyes were sparkling. "Married in secret, and you waiting for him to return from the war."

I laughed. "I guess it was. Pony should tell you about his own parents. The way they would kiss in front of those boys made them all gag."

Having Ellie around reminded me of when Grace lived with us. I liked it a lot. I did not realize how much I missed Grace until I had Ellie to talk to all day.

They stayed through Christmas, which made everyone happy. Even Steve was excited to have Ponyboy and Ellie in Tulsa for the holiday. Our little group of friends was really more of a family, which is why we squeezed everyone into the Curtis home for Christmas. And by Curtis home, I mean the original one, that Darry and Charlotte lived in, not mine and Soda's.

Lily was still wearing Pony's hat when Christmas rolled around. I was carrying her into Darry and Charlotte's house and as we walked through the door, Two-Bit reached out and pulled the hat from Lily's head.

"No!" Lily shrieked and giggled, but I watched Two-Bit's eyes go wide.

"This," Soda said, pointing to Lily's hair as he came in behind us, "is Ponyboy Michael Curtis's fault."

What Soda meant by 'this' was Lily's stained-green hair. It wasn't her whole head, and I had washed out as much as I could, but it was definitely green.

"Somebody's uncle left her unsupervised while they made Christmas cookies." Ponyboy had left the food coloring low enough that Lily could reach and, well, for whatever reason she decided to put it in her hair. Since Lily's hair was such a pale blonde, the green food coloring really stuck to it.

Lily smiled at Two-Bit and his teasing before hiding her face against my shoulder. I had braided Lily's hair, trying to hide as much of the green as I could, but it didn't work that well.

"At least she's festive," Pony said with a shrug, earning himself a slap on the back and laugh from Two-Bit. Those two really were a lot alike, even if Ponyboy tried to say they weren't.

"Lemme put some ornaments in those braids, Lily," Steve tried to convince her. Lily only shook her head and asked for Tommy. Steve pointed Lily towards the kitchen, where Evie was holding him and talking to Karen while she cooked.

It didn't take long for Lily to convince Evie to lay Tommy on the couch, so Lily could sit beside him and talk to him. Tommy was only a month old, and Lily was nearly two, but she was fully convinced that Tommy was her best friend.

This Christmas was also when Darry and Charlotte announced to everyone they were having a baby. Me, Soda, and Pony already knew, but nobody else did.

"What the hell," Steve said, laughing. He pointed to Soda and myself, where we sat together in Darry's big old recliner. "You two really started something, huh?"

"We're trend setters," Soda said, and I flipped my hair over my shoulder.

"Lily's the original," I added, lifting her from where she played on the floor with her new presents to sit on my lap.

I loved these happy times. The whole house smelled like Christmas, between the food and Charlotte's gingerbread cookies and the pine Christmas tree. Even though she was so little, I hoped Lily would remember the Christmas where her hair was green, and her uncle had brought her a new friend. I wanted her to be happy always, and to never know that the world could be sad or scary.


	25. Chapter Twenty-Four

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

 ** _-Sodapop-_**

Me and Stevie, we liked to shoot. I don't mean hunting. We would save up Two-Bit's beer bottles and then take them to a field outside of town to shoot them.

When you ain't shooting people, firing a gun does a lot of good. It releases a lot of feelings, same way fighting did when we were kids. Lord knows I needed it. I only smoked sometimes, usually with Ponyboy, and I wouldn't touch alcohol. I was afraid of having to rely on something to feel normal.

I didn't even like the crutch I sometimes had to use on account of my leg, so why would I want one for my feelings?

"There's somethin' satisfying about watching that glass pop, huh, Soda?" Steve asked, his cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth. It was cold. February. In two months, little Lily Bloom would have another birthday.

"There sure is," I told him, setting up aim for my next shot. The first time we went shooting was also the first time I shot a gun after the war. When the gun kicked, it nearly knocked me off my feet. My balance was different with my false leg. It took me a long time to figure out how to plant my feet to keep myself steady.

"You're getting good at this again," Steve told me and I smiled at him. He'd always been better than me at shooting and he knew it. Just like I knew he was telling me that to make me feel better.

Winter was hard, too, with the false leg. If I stepped wrong on the ice, it could be hard to catch myself. When we were walking to our field we liked to shoot in, I had done just that and slipped. Steve caught me by my arm before I fell.

"That's why Brooklyn always holds your left arm when you're walkin' together and it's been snowing, ain't it?" Steve asked. I reckon it just dawned on him. "It's your left leg, so she walks on your left side."

"I guess we're not as slick as we thought we were," I admitted. I would've lied if it was anyone but Steve asking me that question. I knew that's why she did it, but Brooklyn had never come right out and said it herself. She just started making it a habit to walk with me like that when there was any snow or ice on the ground.

"I'm still getting used to it." I shot my gun and watched the glass go everywhere. "Sometimes when I wake up, I forget, and it's not until I put my one foot on the ground that I remember."

It was annoying, sometimes, the false leg. But all I had to do was think about Brooklyn and Lily and I knew I would do it all again in a heartbeat for them.

"Yeah, well if your dumbass hadn't stepped on a landmine, we wouldn't be having this conversation, Sodapop." Steve was just teasing. You could tell by the smirk on his face.

"Oh, alright, I'll just let you die next time, then." I told him with an eye roll. I picked that up from Brooklyn. I don't think she knew just how much she did it.

"Might as well, Tommy is so colicky I might be headin' that way anyhow." We were lucky that Lily had been the easiest baby in the world. I don't know if Brooklyn could have handled it if Lily was difficult on top of how sick Brooklyn ended up after she was born. "Not all of us can hit the kid lottery."

"Yeah, well," I said, watching Steve line up a new row of beer bottles. We shot them off a wooden ledge we rigged up the first time we came out. "We'll see if we get as lucky the second time."

That made Steve stop in his tracks. "You shittin' me? I thought y'all weren't going to have more kids."

"Hey, Tommy might cry, but you come live with Lily and listen to her ask for a baby all day every day. We wanted to have more than one even before Lily anyway. We talked to Brooklyn's doctor about it. She said now that we know Brooklyn's anemic, we can watch and make sure it doesn't happen again."

"You know a baby got the best of y'all, right? A baby. That's what convinced you to have another baby, the baby that you already have."

Yeah, Lily was still a baby. But she talked about Tommy constantly and how she wanted her own. Not only that, but we lived next door to Brooklyn's aunt. When play time was over for Lily and Dolly's girls, Lily went back inside alone will Dulce and Anna Maria ran across their yard holding hands.

 _"A playmate,"_ Brooklyn said one day when Lily hung her head and kicked her little legs through the snow as she walked back to the door. _"That's what she wants. A friend she can always have around. We're the only ones who can give her that."_

I knew she was right about that. And here's the thing, even if you know it might not be the best idea, when you have a kid, you want to do everything you can for that kid. A sibling would make Lily happy. It would make us happy, too, and if we had permission from Brooklyn's doctor, then why not?

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I waved Steve's words off with my hand. "Hush, though. We ain't sure yet if Brooklyn is."

Even if Steve looked at me like I was crazy, I didn't want Lily to grow up alone. Neither did Brooklyn. I loved having Darry and Ponyboy around growing up. And even if he was mean more often than not, I knew Brooklyn had loved Dally, too.

"Y'all just don't be giving Evie ideas, you hear?"

"Hey, now, I can't control your wife any more than you can."

By Valentine's Day we knew for sure that Brooklyn was pregnant. If Brookie's count was right, Lily would be a big sister before October.

"I almost don't believe it without all the nosebleeds," Brooklyn joked. She was smiling wide, and her cheeks were rosy. Already she looked like she felt better this go around than she had with Lily.

"The baby will only be a month younger than Darry and Charlotte's." I kissed her then. I was just as happy this time as I had been when Brooklyn told me she was pregnant with Lily, but I was more scared this time, too. Even with what Dr. Gard said and even with Brooklyn's huge iron tablets and the list of foods to eat the doctor had given her, I worried. She couldn't have been more than three weeks along and I was already worried sick about Brooklyn.

We were flip-flopped. Now Brooklyn was the happy and excited one while I tried to hide how worried I was.

"How long until we can tell Lily?" I asked. I knew once we told her, everyone in the whole city of Tulsa was liable to know. Lily was friendly as all get out, and I wouldn't have put it past her to tell everyone she saw about the new baby.

"We gotta wait nine more weeks," Brooklyn told me. "You're supposed to be at least twelve weeks along before you tell anyone."

"So, we'll tell her in…?" I asked. If there was something I for sure wasn't good at, it was math. Brooklyn _was_ good at it, though, which is why she kept books for Darry's business.

"April," she said. "But not until after her birthday."

So, mid to late April. That's when we would tell Lily, when it would become all the way real. I hoped Brooklyn wouldn't be too sick in that time, so that we wouldn't have to tell Lily earlier than that. Lily would be beyond upset if we lost the baby.

"Think we'll be able to keep a secret from Nosy-Rosy for that long?"

"We're gonna have to one way or another." Brookie's smile then made me so happy that I could forget how worried I was.

She was right, it was almost hard to believe she was pregnant. Never mind that Dr. Gard had confirmed it. This time was so different.

Brooklyn's nose didn't bleed. She wasn't tired all the time. She didn't faint once. Hell, she didn't even have morning sickness. If it wasn't for her belly, already starting to curve just a little bit by Lily's birthday, I wouldn't have believed it.

"Do you think it's the iron tablets?" I asked her one night after she had laid Lily to bed. Brooklyn sat down on the edge of our own bed and I pulled her down beside me.

"I don't know," she said and shrugged. "It all feels different this time. Maybe it's a boy."

"You think so?" I ran my hand across her stomach. I would've just been happy with a healthy baby, but honestly, I wanted a boy. Then we would have one of each.

Lily was more than enough for me, but it was still exciting to think about having a new baby.

"That'd be nice, right? We already have Lily, so a boy this time would be fun." Brooklyn said. She had called it early on when she decided Lily would be a girl. Maybe her saying it now would make it so this time, too.

"Yeah, a boy would be fun. Lily would be happy, because a boy would really be like a 'Tommy baby'." That's always how Lily said his name. Not just Tommy, it always had to be Tommy baby.

"I bet he'll look like you." Brooklyn laid her hand on top of my own on her belly and leaned forward to kiss me. She decided, then. This baby would be a boy.

"Can I name this one Sodapop Junior?" I asked, making her giggle. Man, she was happy this time.

"Only if the baby looks _exactly_ like you. Hair and eyes and everything."


	26. Chapter Twenty-Five

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

The hardest part of keeping the new baby a secret from Lily was the fact that she was my little shadow. Unless she was playing with Dulce and Anna Maria or napping—or watching _I Love Lucy,_ her favorite show—Lily was never all that far behind me.

I was very lucky I wasn't sick with this baby. That would have made it harder for sure. Soda was right to call her a Nosy Rosy, though. Ponyboy said she was _attentive,_ because she was always watching and listening. I said she liked to know things. And by 'things', I meant everything.

This baby was going to be bigger, I was pretty sure. I didn't get a belly with Lily for a long time. I already had a little bit of a belly by the time we could tell Lily, and she had noticed. She always sat in our bedroom waiting for me to get dressed in the morning, and more than once she had patted my belly and asked, "Why, Mama? Why?"

I never answered. I always changed the subject by asking her what she wanted for breakfast. You could only see that my belly had already grown when I wasn't dressed. As soon as I had my clothes on, Lily would forget. Truly out of sight, out of mind with that girl.

Two weeks after her second birthday, though, we broke the news to Lily.

Soda was playing with her after work. They had a game they played, where Soda would lay on the floor and Lily would position herself on his feet and take his hands. When Soda straightened his legs out, it lifted Lily into the air. She always laughed and said she was flying. Sometimes Soda would just lift her using his false leg, because it was easier for her to balance on the hard plastic and metal than on his real foot.

"Hey, Lily Bloom," Soda said to her while he had her lifted up in the air.

"What, Daddy?" She asked between her giggles. When she was playing with Soda, Lily only had eyes for her dad. I don't think she even realized I was in the room, curled up in Soda's chair with Patches. I definitely thought the cat knew about the baby, somehow. Patches would lay against my stomach and purr.

I had been too cocky about feeling better with this pregnancy. I wasn't sick, but it was only five o'clock and I was already exhausted. The warmth from Patches didn't help, either. I was trying hard not to drift off.

"Do you still want a baby?" I watched Lily's brown eyes go wide.

"Yeah! A Tommy baby!" Soda folded his legs in so that Lily was much closer to his face.

"Do you want to know a secret?" They were almost nose-to-nose. Even though Soda always said Lily looked more like me, their faces in profile looked exactly the same.

Lily nodded, like she thought what Soda was about to say would be the most important thing in the world. I mean, it was pretty important, but the serious look on her little face almost made me laugh.

He pulled Lily close enough that he could whisper in her ear. Even though I didn't hear the words Soda said to Lily, I knew exactly what they must have been when her head shot up and she smiled at me.

"Baby?" She asked in a whisper, like she didn't believe what Soda had just told her. I nodded at her.

"Yeah, a baby." Lily wiggled her way out of Soda's hands so that she could launch herself into my lap. She landed just sort of Patches, but the cat was used to Lily's constant excitement. Patches didn't even wake up when Lily jostled her all about so that she could hug me.

I smiled at Soda over the top of Lily's head. He was still on the floor, and his hair was all messed up in a way that reminded me of when we were younger. Soda pushed himself up out of the floor. He leaned over to kiss me, our babies caught between us.

We were right. Once we told Lily, the floodgates were open. _She_ did all the work and let everyone else know.

"Mama got baby!" She would tell people, and point at her own belly.

When she told Two-Bit, he only raised an eyebrow and gave use one of his signature lazy grins. "Oh yeah? Tell your mama not to be so dramatic this time around, Lily."

Lily only giggled and hugged Two-Bit's leg. Sometimes I thought Lily had kind of a little girl crush on Two-Bit. She only ever got shy around him.

"No," Grace disagreed with Two-Bit. "Tell your mama to be as dramatic as she wants to be, that way your favorite auntie can come hang out with you all of the time."

Grace had taught Lily to call her 'Auntie Grace', even though they were really second cousins.

"You two gotta cool it or we'll never catch up to y'all," Darry had joked. But he had a surprise of his own. "Or maybe not. The doctor said Charlotte might be having twins."

"Oh, no thanks." I said, shaking my head. "Don't give your brother any ideas."

But the one person we _didn't_ tell was Ponyboy. This was his last semester of college. He was so busy that he didn't get to visit home much at all. That was okay, though, because we decided to have Lily save the news for Ponyboy's graduation when we knew for sure we would all see him.

"Don't tell Pony about the baby," Soda reminded Lily every time Pony asked to talk to her on the phone. "You can't tell him until we see him at his school."

Lily would nod so seriously, her wavy hair bobbing around her head. Somehow, she managed to keep such a big secret in her tiny little body, even if she did hop around in little circles while she talked to her uncle.

I was so surprised she was able to keep it. In May 1972, when Ponyboy graduated, I was four months along. I had a little bit of a belly for sure by then, but you still couldn't see it if I was wearing a looser-fitting dress.

"I'm going to have bruises by the time this is over," I whispered to Soda during the graduation ceremony. Let me tell you, college graduations are boring. This 'short speech' it was starting with had taken almost an hour already.

Lily was getting antsy and kept bouncing or standing up in my lap. When she stood, it was to look at all the people around us and try to get them to wave back at her.

"Come sit with me, wiggle-worm. Give your mama a break." But then Lily thought it was a game, so she went from Soda to Darry, to Charlotte, to Ellie, to Steve, to Evie, stopping only to kiss Tommy, then on to Two-Bit and Karen before going back down the line.

It kept her entertained, though, and nobody minded passing her back and forth. We did that for I don't know how long, until the people graduating started to get called to walk across the stage.

Soda caught her and settled her back into his lap. "Gotta stay still now, Lily Bloom, so you can watch Ponyboy."

That was the only moment Lily stayed still for. As soon as Ponyboy had walked all the way across the stage and Lily had clapped, she went back to her game. This time, though, she stopped when she got to Darry.

"Aw," I heard her say over all the people clapping and cheering. When I peeked around Soda, Lily was standing up on Darry's lap and had her hands on his cheeks. "No cry!"

Darry had teared up, but Lily used her tiny hands to wipe Darry's cheeks. Then she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the forehead, just the same way that Soda kissed Lily anytime she was upset. It made me smile.

Much later, after all of the graduates walked across the stage, we somehow found Ponyboy in the crowd of people. The only way we even found Pony was because Two-Bit had a stroke of genius and lifted Lily to stand on his shoulders to spot Pony. Lily got so excited when she found Ponyboy that she accidently kicked Two-Bit in the face, though. She didn't even pay attention to Two-Bit when he tried to make her feel bad about it. Lily all but threw herself from Two-Bit's arms into Pony's.

She hugged Pony around the neck and then twisted herself to look at Soda and me. Lily didn't say anything, but Soda nodded at her and she smiled before cupping her hand around Pony's ear so she could whisper to him.

Lily had told Ellie earlier, so we all smiled while we watched Pony's gray-green eyes grow wide. Then Pony's smile grew wide, and he used his free arm to hug first Soda and then me.

"Look at us now, Brookie," he whispered to me. His voice sounded choked up, and Ponyboy didn't say anything else, even if he hugged me tight. I knew even then, on this happy day for him, he was thinking about Johnny and Dally. That boy always was. They were the reason he worked so hard, after all.


	27. Chapter Twenty-Six

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

Ponyboy spent one more summer with us, much to Lily's excitement. That boy was tired by the time he finished college. Plus, he needed the summer to apply for jobs.

"I'm really only qualified to teach," Ponyboy told me with a sheepish little shrug.

"I don't think you would hate that too much," I teased him. He would make a great teacher, and he would enjoy it, especially if he were teaching high school or college.

"No, I wouldn't…" he admitted, "but I'm sure Two-Bit and Steve will make fun of me."

I rolled my eyes at him. Lily was napping, so we were talking quietly in the living room. "Two-Bit and Steve make fun of you for everything already. It brings joy to their little hearts. Just ignore them like you always do."

Ponyboy was quiet for a moment, staring down at his hands.

"Darry and Soda are going to be proud of you no matter what you decide to do," I added on. That made Pony smile and blush at the same time.

I tossed my baby names book onto the coffee table. "I've read that book three times and I still hate all the boy names."

"Y'all have a girl's name picked out, just not a boy's name?" Pony asked, and I nodded.

"Yeah, if it's a girl, we'll name her Daisy to go with Lily. But we don't have a boy's name, so I'm sure it'll end up being a boy since we don't have one ready."

"What does Lily want?"

I blew my breath. " _Two_ babies. She can't believe that Charlotte is having two, but I'm only having one. I think I tell Lily at least once a day that she's greedy."

That made Ponyboy laugh. "I'll start keeping a list of boy names from the books I read. Maybe you'll like one of those."

"You better hope, because I only have four months left to be indecisive."

Ponyboy read just about anything under the sun, so I hoped he would stumble on something good.

I hadn't told anyone other than Soda, but I was pretty sure this baby was a boy. At only five months, the baby felt bigger and heavier in my middle than Lily had. Plus this baby was way more active—always turning flips and kicking.

Charlotte had the twins at the end of my fifth month, in June 1972. They were nearly a month early, but apparently that was normal for twins. One of each—a girl they named Sadie Lynne and a boy they named after Darry.

Darry himself was a junior, named after the Curtis boys' father. That made his son _the third,_ technically. Ponyboy called him _'tres'_ , like the Spanish word for 'three', and the nickname stuck instantly, though Charlotte spelled it as 'Trace'.

Sadie and Trace both had their mom's curly dark hair, but also Darry's icy green-blue eyes. When they slept next to each other, they held hands. Lily couldn't get over how cute she thought they were.

I was holding Sadie for Lily to inspect when I overheard Darry and Soda talking in the other room. I hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but once I heard them, I couldn't help myself.

"I can't stop thinking about how much Mom and Dad would have loved them. All of them. Lily, Sadie, Trace. I wish they were here." Darry said to Soda. I heard my husband answer, too.

"I know. I felt the same way when Lily was born. I'm sure I'll feel the same way again in a couple of months."

It broke my heart to hear them talking that way. I felt a little selfish, too, because to be honest I hadn't thought of my own mother when Lily was born. I guess she had been gone from my life for too long. Of course, I had thought of Dally, especially with the way her pale blonde hair exactly matched his.

"Wuve me? Still?" Lily's voice pulled me out of my thoughts. She had moved across the room and I didn't even notice. I guess she lost interest in me and Sadie, because now she was across the room with Ponyboy and Trace.

She whispered the question to Pony, and he whispered back to her. "Always, baby girl."

And that made me smile. It made Lily smile, too, and she nearly jostled Trace so much that she woke him up when she hugged Ponyboy around the neck.

In July, when I was six months pregnant, Ponyboy asked me a question I never expected. It was a hot summer, and Lily spent a lot of it outside playing. She tanned just like Sodapop in the summer. Since Lily played outside so much, I spent a lot of time sitting on the front porch watching her.

One muggy, strangely cloudy day, Ponyboy came out onto the porch to sit with me. I was sure it would start raining soon, but the clouds just hung heavy. When he came through the door, Ponyboy had a piece of bread in his hand for me.

I had no idea why, but all during that pregnancy, I craved bread. All I wanted was bread. I baked so much of it that I was pretty sure even Lily could make it. I knew something was up since Pony brought me a piece.

"What do you want?" I asked him, taking the bread but eyeing him. Pony blushed bright red. If he thought he was slick, it wasn't working.

"Well, it's a favor…" he started. Pony also brought his backpack out with him. He had been using it even though he graduated to keep track of his job applications and resumes and stuff. But what he pulled out of his backpack was something I had seen before, something that I would always remember.

Pony's old composition book was faded and tattered. You could still see his _Ponyboy Curtis, 1964_ written on the front. It had been eight years, but he was still carrying the composition book around. Seeing it made my heart pound. I guess the baby didn't like that much, because I felt it twist around inside me.

"A favor?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at him. Pony nodded, thumbing through the pages of the book.

"I had this one English professor," he started. "He's published a book before. I let him read this story, our story, and he was really interested in it. He has contacts with publishers and…"

I guess he was too shy to go on, so I finished for him. "He wants you to try to get this one published?"

"Yeah," Pony said after a beat. "But it's not the 1600s anymore. You can't publish handwritten books…you have to submit typed documents."

I sighed. "Go put my typewriter on the table for me. I can't really lift it myself."

The surprise on Pony's face almost made me laugh. "You'll really do it? I hated to ask, with the new baby and all, but you know how slow I type… it would never be done in time."

"Typing won't hurt the baby. I typed every day at my old job when I was pregnant with Lily. Besides, it would be pretty cool for Lily and this little one to say that their uncle is an author."

"It really won't bother you too much?" I shrugged. I couldn't really say either way until I read it, but I gave Pony an answer anyway.

"We already lived it," I reminded him. "Surely reading it again after all this time isn't as bad as actually living it. You better get the typewriter before I change my mind."

Ponyboy's huge smile was enough to show I had made the right choice. Even if I hated it, typing it might help Pony do something big. Besides, I knew it wouldn't take me long to type it.

And it didn't. Even with keeping Darry's books, and minding Lily, I got the whole thing typed in just under three weeks. Every day, I sat at the table and typed as quickly as I could while Lily napped.

At the end of those three weeks, I traded the heavy, typed pages for one sheet of paper from Ponyboy. A list of names, all taken from the books he'd read through the summer. I liked his list much better than any of the names in the baby name book, but I still just couldn't pick.

So one day, while Ponyboy was running around doing who knows what with Curly and Two-Bit, I read the names to Lily and let her choose.

"Lily, wanna pick a name in case the baby is a boy?" She nodded so hard it shook her whole body. I had her sit in front of me on the couch and read them out loud to her.

"These are names from Uncle Ponyboy," I told her. "Ready?"

I think I read her twenty names. _Oliver, Ezra, Jasper, Emmerson._ Old-timey names that _I_ like the sound of, but made Lily scrunch up her face. Until I reached the name Jace.

"That one!" Lily said, bouncing up and down on the couch.

"You like Jace?" I asked. I liked it, too. Simple, but still unique. I had never heard it, anyway.

"Yeah! Jace or Daisy. That my baby!"

Jace or Daisy. I liked the sound of both. I would just have to wait for three more months to see for sure which it would be.


	28. Chapter Twenty-Seven

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

Karen loved Dulce when she was a baby, then she loved Anna Maria, then she loved Lily and Tommy…now she loved Patches. And I think the cat probably liked Karen better than she liked me, Soda, or Lily.

"She wouldn't even miss us if you took her home," I told her one day while she was at our house. I was almost certain Karen came over for Patches more than she did for either me or Lily.

Patches was purring awfully loud while she sat in Karen's lap. "That's because you obviously don't give her the attention she deserves."

I rolled my eyes and poured some dish soap into the sink. Lily liked to 'wash dishes', which really meant she liked to play in cold, bubbly water. I always tossed in a few of her plastic play dishes for her.

Lily pushed a chair across the kitchen up to the sink, because there was no chance of her reaching it even on tiptoe. She scrambled into the chair and smiled at me.

"Thanks, Mama," she told me.

"You're welcome, sweet girl."

I walked back into the living room and sat on the couch with Karen. "It's quiet here without Ponyboy."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Now I have to entertain Lily again. All I want to do is sleep."

Ponyboy had decided to take a position for the 1972-1973 school year at his old college. He was a teaching assistant/tutor for one of his professors. He decided to take it so that he could be close to Ellie for her last year in college, and so that he would have time to edit drafts of his book.

Only me, Soda, and Darry knew about the book, but there was a real chance of it getting published. Ponyboy decided to call it _The Outsiders._

"If you would pop out that baby, you might not have that problem," Karen said. I made a face at her.

"I would _love_ to have the baby already." Truly, all I wanted was to sleep. But I couldn't during the day, with Soda at work and Lily to look after. Every day once Soda got home, though, I would nap until he woke me up for supper.

"You don't look any bigger than you were with Lily. Are you sure this baby is going to bigger?"

"I am so sure this baby is huge. I can feel it." It was early September. This baby wasn't even due until the first few weeks of October, but it was ready. I was ready. At the end of August, I had started to have aches in my hips, lower back, and even the tops of my legs.

Dr. Gard had laughed and said, "Looks like someone is anxious to be born. You have some weeks yet, but the baby is sitting low on your pelvis. That's where the pressure is coming from."

It wasn't anything to worry about, unless it became truly painful. It didn't _hurt_ , it was just uncomfortable.

"You and Evie make me never want a baby. It's all too much work," Karen joked.

"Well, Lily's never peed on me," I admitted. Evie had told us a story about changing Tommy's diaper only to have him pee all over her. "Seems like girls are easier than boys. Aunt Dolly hasn't gone crazy from Dulce or Anna Maria yet, anyway."

I was right, in the end. The baby was bigger than Lily had been—I'm sure there was no room left to grow at the end. I figure that's why I went into labor early.

That last week of pregnancy was hell. The pressure was so heavy I could hardly stand it. Lily was such a good little helper that week. It was too hard for me to bend over, so she made sure that Patches had water and food every day.

She did chores, too. Sweeping the floor, folding laundry. Little things, but they helped more than she knew. And every day, she would meet Dulce at the gate between our yards and pass along a message for Aunt Dolly that I would be okay until Soda got home.

"Because we big sisters," Lily would say with a nod. "I tell Dulce."

Jace Michael gave the twins a run for their money with coming early. He was three weeks early, but he weighed over eight pounds, three more than Lily had when she was born.

He was born during a blizzard, too, which was weird weather for Tulsa in mid-September.

"I thought you said you wouldn't be dramatic this time," Soda had laughed, bundling Lily up to stay next door with Aunt Dolly and Esteban. It took him nearly ten minutes to get her dressed. Even though it was late at night, Lily was nearly jumping out of her skin because she was so excited.

"Daddy," Lily said, completely blind to what the situation was really about. "Gonna get baby? My baby? Bring baby home?"

"Yeah, honey, we'll bring the baby home in a couple of days." Lily was so excited that she planted a big kiss first on Soda's cheek and then my own.

"Hey, it's the baby being dramatic this time. If I had a choice, I would've gone into labor a month ago." The pressure on my hips made it so that I didn't feel those first contractions, like I had with Lily. I didn't realize until I got out of bed during the night to use the bathroom and my water broke instead.

He came fast, too. If that storm had been any worse, Jace was liable to have been born in the car on the side of the road.

There was that scary moment, right after Jace was born, when we held our breath and waited to see if I would hemorrhage again. Well, Jace didn't hold his breath. He cried even as I held him to my chest and Soda ran his finger down Jace's cheek over and over again.

"Shhh," Soda tried to soothe him. He seemed pretty angry about being born even though he was quick to do it.

"Well, you're still a bleeder," Dr. Gard said with a smile on her face that let us know everything was alright. "But I'm confident we're in the clear. You have nothing to worry about. Love on that sweet baby boy instead."

Jace was the most beautiful baby boy, Soda's exact twin except for his eyes. They shared all the same features and the same honey-blonde hair, but Jace's eyes were nothing like his father's. They weren't like any eyes I had ever seen.

I wondered, sometimes, if that late-summer blizzard had anything to do with it. Jace's eyes made me think of winter every time I looked at them. I had seen that soft, light blue before, on clear winter days when I looked up at the sky. Winter skies in Tulsa were the softest blue, and so were my baby's eyes.

Grace brought Lily to the hospital the next day to meet her little brother. She loved him as soon as she son him, which I was grateful for. I was afraid her excitement for the baby would go away once he was actually born.

"Oh, Gwace!" Lily breathed more than she said. "Looky my baby!"

Lily had climbed right up into the bed with us. I laid Jace on the bed in front of her, so she could get a good look at him. Jace stretched out his arms and legs and sighed in his sleep. He was so long that he kicked Lily with his tiny feet when he stretched out, making Lily laugh her head off.

"Yeah, he's a pretty good one," Grace told her with a wink. Even though I was fine this time around, Grace told me to expect her every day for at least a month when she wasn't working.

I wasn't going to argue with that. Like I said, Jace was definitely bigger than Lily had been, and I was a lot sorer now than I had been with Lily.

Soda, for his part, was amazed to have a son. I liked to watch him hold Jace, laid out in his lap, Jace's head cupped in his hands. Soda looked at Jace like he could hardly believe he was real.

"I'm gonna have to teach him everything," Soda whispered while he held him. I leaned over the edge of the bed and kissed the side of his head. It was all I could reach, because I wasn't sure Soda would ever take his eyes off Jace.

I knew that even though he was happy, he was already thinking ahead to a time eighteen years away. He never said it out loud, but I could see the question on his face. _Will there be a war, a draft, when our son is eighteen?_

I refused to even think that was a possibility. Not when Jace was so new and I could hear Soda singing old Elvis Presley songs to him a Soda rocked Jace to sleep. It was something that would weigh heavy on Soda's heart and mind, though, whether I ignored it or not.


	29. Chapter Twenty-Eight

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

 _ **-Sodapop-**_

All that snow that fell the day Jace was born started melting the very next day. September 16th, 1972—a day that brought Tulsa the weirdest summer blizzard and the day that brought me my son. By the time we brought him home, hardly any of it was left on the ground. Brooklyn wasn't sick this time, like she was with Lily, but she was awfully sore.

He came so quickly that I don't think Brooklyn was ready. We weren't even at the hospital for a full half hour before Jace was born. Brooklyn was right about how ready he was. When she stood up for the first time after having Jace, her legs shook like I had never seen.

"He's a lot bigger than Lily," she said, waving me away when I asked if she was okay. Still, I made her let me carry Jace to the house and I went to get Lily from Dolly and Esteban's so Brookie could rest.

"Daddy!" Lily shouted when I walked into the house. She got up from the tea party she was having with Dulce and Anna Maria.

"Hi, Soda!" Dulce said. Anna Maria only waved. She was a shy little thing, always shaking her black curls so that they fell in front of her face so she could hide.

"Hello, girls!" I caught Lily when she jumped at me. She had feathers pinned in her hair. Dulce's doing, I was sure. "Ready to go home, little birdy?"

"We're French ladies, actually. They wear feathers in their hair, right, Papa?"

Esteban peeked over his newspaper and winked at me. "That's right. Your papa knew lots of French ladies when he used to travel in Europe. But your mama, she tied me down."

That earned him a little smack from Dolly, but she was smiling at Esteban. "What your papa means to say is that he was, and always will be, a rascal. We'll be by tomorrow to see the new baby, if Brooklyn is feeling up to it. Lily's been telling us all about him."

"Wuve him," Lily said, laying her head on my shoulder.

"Yeah, he's a pretty good one," I agreed. "Thank y'all for keeping this mess of a little girl for us."

Lily ran through the muddy grass ahead of me. She was in the door before I was even halfway across the yard.

"Shhh, Lily," I heard Brooklyn whispering to her. "Don't wake your brother up. He needs to sleep."

Even though Jace was a big, stocky baby, Dr. Gard warned us he might sleep even more than a newborn would usually. He was still three weeks early, no matter how big he was. Jace had a little catching up to do.

"What's in your hair?" Brooklyn asked her, still in a whisper. I scooped Lily up off the couch. We came home from the hospital in the middle of the afternoon. It was Lily's nap time, too.

"I French, Mama. Where we go, Daddy?"

"It's time for you to nap, just like your brother." Lily blew her breath at me, but I just flipped her upside down so that the feathers in her hair tickled her cheeks. "Even French ladies take naps."

After Lily was settled into bed and fall asleep, I took Jace from Brooklyn's arms and laid him in the bassinet by our bed. He was down for the count. I was sure they would both be asleep for a good while, long enough for Brookie to have a bath, surely.

"What are you up to?" Brooklyn asked me, rubbing her eye. She was paler than usual after having the baby, but she was still beautiful.

"I thought you might want to take a bath while the little French lady and the baby sleep."

She smiled at me and let me take her hand to lead her to the bathroom. "I'm supposed to be better this time."

Still, Brooklyn didn't complain when I undid the zipper on her dress for her. "What was it you said? 'Your kid has a huge head'? I think that's right."

Brooklyn blushed, because she had told me that as Jace was being born. She whispered it to me in between pushing.

"I mean, he does, so…" I kissed her before helping her slip out of her dress. When she sunk into the bathtub, she closed her eyes and sighed.

"If we ever have another one, boy or girl, they aren't allowed to be eight pounds again."

I sat with her in the bathroom, on the edge of the tub. With two kids now, I think we both knew we wouldn't get a lot of alone time. So, while our babies slept, I washed Brooklyn's hair for her.

"Ever think we'd be here?" I asked her, working the shampoo into her hair. I felt her head shake under my hands.

"I can't say I expected to marry the boy who used to bother me in science class." We only had one class together, science the year I dropped out. I didn't even make it till Christmas before I quit school to work full time to help Darry with the bills. It was before I dated Sandy, when I was still wagering my luck with going after Brookie with Dally around.

"Remember how you used to knock my hand around while I took notes? It drove me crazy." I could hear her smiled when she talked, though. "It was awful boring after you left, though. I never let Mr. King give me another table mate, either."

"School was boring. I had to liven it up." I remembered how Brooklyn only agreed to share the table with her if I pinky promised to cut open the frog when it got to that part of the class. I could still see it in my head: her nails were painted pink, and her finger was tiny all curled around mine.

She twisted our hands and kissed the side of mine, to 'seal the promise', she said. Then she made me kiss hers and between her kiss and mine I thought my heart would fall out of my chest. And she had no idea, because we had grown up together and she didn't know all the thoughts that ran through my head about her.

Now we had two kids together. Life was funny that way.

"Think they'll sleep long enough that I can take a nap, too?" Brookie asked, leaning her head against my hand and closing her eyes.

"I think I can handle them if they wake up." She turned her hand to kiss my hand. While she got dressed, I scooted Lily over in our bed so that there would be room for Brooklyn.

I knew Lily wouldn't bother Brooklyn if she woke up, but I took Jace into the living room with me. Brookie and Grace were the only ones who had seen the little guy so far, and they both thought he looked just like me. I guessed they weren't too far off from that.

I reckon it was good bonding time, anyway. I laid down on the couch and brought Jace with me so he was laying on my chest. He opened a sky-blue eye to look at me before smiling a little and falling back to sleep.

I didn't know why, but being Jace's dad felt different than being Lily's dad. Maybe it was because Lily was older now. She would be three come April. She didn't need us the way Jace did.

Maybe it was because Jace was a boy. _My_ boy. A lot of it feeling different, I think, came from Vietnam. Drafts were for boys. Lily would never be pulled across the world to fight a war she didn't want to be in. But Jace could be.

Brooklyn had been saying for months now how big Jace was, but he felt light as a feather while I held him to my chest and tried not to think of the worst two years of my life.

Jace was almost a month old before Ponyboy got to meet him. I was home with Jace, but Brooklyn and Karen had taken Lily to get new shoes. Lily had been teeny tiny for so long, but now she was starting a growth spurt. She was growing out of everything.

Ellie came with him and cooed over Jace while Ponyboy held him.

"What's his name?" Ponyboy asked when I laid Jace in his arms. He had been so busy with work and his book, that I was only able to catch Pony on the phone once and I only got to talk to him long enough to tell him the baby was a healthy boy.

"Jace Michael," I told him. Pony's head popped up and he looked at me with wide eyes. _Michael_ was his own middle name, and now he shared it with his nephew. "It was Brooklyn's idea."

"She didn't have to do that." Ponyboy's eyebrows knit together when he looked back down at the baby. He didn't have a free hand to dry his eye, but Ellie wiped away the tear while I ruffled Ponyboy's hair.

Brooklyn and Ponyboy had gotten real close after Dallas and Johnny died and I left for the war. She had decided no matter what first name we picked, Michael would be the middle name for a boy before she even got pregnant with Jace:

 _"Trace is already named after Darry," Brooklyn had said. "And you know if Ponyboy ever has a little boy, he'll name him after you. You're his hero whether you like it or not. So let's name ours after him."_

I sure couldn't ague with her there.

"I can't get over his cheeks!" Ellie said, running her finger over them.

"Lily thinks they're apples," I told them, shaking my head. That little girl came up with wild stuff sometimes. Just like Lily had been, Jace was a happy baby. He smiled a lot, and when he smiled, his chubby cheeks turned red.

After a while, Ponyboy passed Jace off to Ellie so she could hold him. When he did, he stood up and hugged me.

My baby brother was the same height as me, finally done growing. I couldn't give him a piggyback ride like I used to, and not because of my leg.

I hugged him back and he whispered 'thank you' in my ear.


	30. Chapter Twenty-Nine

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

I had gotten lucky twice. Lily was such a happy, easy baby and Jace was just the same.

He was lovely, Soda's little twin, from his golden hair to the smile that I swear never left his face. Jace was the light of all of our lives, especially Lily's. She loved her little brother like I had never seen.

"Mama, wanna see my baby!" That's what Lily said near about every morning, as soon as she rolled out of bed. I always heard her, calling out as she came into the bedroom, but she never made it far.

"Shhh, Lily Bloom!" Soda would say, standing up from the bed. Lily would giggle when Soda scooped her up of the floor. "Your baby is sleepin', and so is Mama!"

Soda would take Lily along with him while he got ready for work, cooking her breakfast and letting her pretend to shave with him. He was keeping her busy so that Jace could sleep a little longer, and sometimes I would, too.

Lily ended up smelling like Soda's shaving cream every morning. Before Soda left for work, I would have to catch Lily, again, before she could make it into our bedroom to pester Jace.

"Let's tell Daddy bye-bye," I would say, catching her by the hand and twirling her down the hallway, away from the sleeping baby. Lily would laugh and try to say 'no', but I always got her to the door in time for Soda to kiss us goodbye.

The problem was that Lily wanted someone to play with. Dulce had been in school for a while now, but Anna Maria was old enough to go now, too. Her next door best friends weren't available Monday through Friday, from eight in the morning to three-thirty in the afternoon.

Jace was her next-best option, especially considering that Tommy lived a few blocks away—never mind that he was walking now, and Evie brought him over every other day. Or the three of us would go to Evie and Steve's, so that Lily and Tommy could play.

Tommy made a much better playmate, considering he was walking and Jace wasn't even sitting up yet, but Lily still wanted Jace to 'play'.

"Now I play Jace?" Lily would ask.

"Now you hug Mama!" I liked to hug her close, partly because it made her giggle uncontrollably, and partly because I liked to smell Soda's shaving cream on her cheeks.

Then it was a game between me and Lily, trying to keep her busy helping with chores or scribbling in her own little notebook while we 'did numbers' for Uncle Darry. Anything to keep her away from Jace until we heard his sweet little coos coming from the bedroom and knew he was awake.

"I don't know how you don't drink," Grace told me once. She was spending the day with us and got to see the madness first hand. Grace loved my children, but that's where her fondness for kids ended.

She was lucky in that Two-Bit felt the same way and had no desire to slow down or settle down anytime soon. Or ever, more likely, for those two.

"But they're so cute," I said, lifting Jace from my lap to squish his face next to mine. This, like almost everything, made Jace laugh.

"Yeah, but that doesn't count. You think _everything_ that has to do with Sodapop is cute, and those rugrats of yours look like him."

Jace had Soda's face exactly, and Lily still had his smile and eyes, but Lily was starting to look more and more like me the older she got. Same wave to our hair, same freckles across our noses and cheeks.

"If anyone should be drinking, it should be Charlotte." I had no idea how _she_ did it. Lily, at least, was older than Jace. She was two when he was born and already had an independent streak. I could leave her to her own devices—painting or playing dress up with Patches or watching an episode of _I Love Lucy_ —while I tended to Jace.

But Charlotte had two babies, always, to look after. There was no help from an older sibling. Or sweet time to play with the older one while the younger one napped. Twins, I was sure, would be what would drive me to drink.

And Evie would have two kids to look after soon, too. I swear Soda and Steve had to do _everything_ the same, even if they didn't mean to. They grew up doing everything together, went to the war together, came back to work at the DX together, and now their kids followed one after the other.

Lily, then Tommy. Jace, now this new little Randle baby. The Randle kids would be closer in age than Lily and Jace, though. Lily would be three in just two months and here was Jace just four months old.

"Well, you're a saint. I'm not," Grace said, reaching into her purse. She pulled out a folded-up map and unfolded it in front of us. I had Jace propped up in my lap—he liked to look around. When he saw the map, all unfolded in front of us, he reached a little chubby hand out towards it.

Lily's head popped around the corner when she heard the paper map rustling. She had been doing one of her favorite things, painting on the kitchen floor. Lily could make fifty paintings in a day, easy, especially since Ponyboy always kept her in stock of paints.

"Paper?" Lily asked, excitement in her voice. She crawled over me and Jace only to realize the map was _not_ a huge piece of paper she could paint. "What is it? What, Gwace?"

"It's a map," Grace told her. "Me and your Uncle Two-Bit are going to take a trip this summer."

A road trip. Grace had the route marked in red marker. Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and ending in California before it looped back to Tulsa.

"That's a lot of states." A long time ago, my father, me, and Dally took a long road trip from New York to Oklahoma.

"Yeah," Grace said, a huge smile on her face. "That's the point! Neither of us have been out of Oklahoma. We wanna see more!"

I wasn't surprised that this was coming from Grace and Two-Bit. Both of them were restless as all get-out.

"I mean, even Pony's been to Georgia." This was true. He had gone there to meet Ellie's family before. "And you got to grow up in New York."

This little comment from Grace started a fascination in Lily. I didn't even realize she had been paying attention to our conversation until Soda came into our bedroom after tucking Lily in for the night.

He was laughing to himself while I sat in bed with Jace, who was working on what I was pretty sure was his fiftieth bottle of the day. That boy could _eat_.

"What's so funny?" I asked him, letting Soda take Jace from my arms. Soda loved Jace so much. He insisted on holding Jace pretty much nonstop once he got home from work.

"Lily wants to know why Jace came from you, but _you_ came from someone named 'New York'."

I had to laugh at that, too. Lily must have been trying to figure it out all day. No wonder she had been so quiet after Grace left.

"It's an honest question," I allowed. Soda got into bed with me, Jace already asleep in his arms. They really did look so much alike. Soda bowed his head to kiss the top of Jace's, and their hair was exactly the same shade of golden blonde.

Lily's 'honest question' stuck around. She asked me about New York all the time. She really _did_ think New York was a person until I showed her the state on the map.

"Why, Mama?" She asked. Lily insisted I tack up the map in her room. I marked Tulsa in Oklahoma for her, to show her where we were, and New York City, where I grew up until we moved. "So far!"

"Because your grandpa wanted to move here." Lily knew my father, though neither of us got to see him very much. With Dally gone and me married, Dad worked a lot more than he ever did while I was in school or even when Soda was off in the war.

"But _why?_ " Lily did not know about Dally or my mom. I thought she was too little to learn about those things. She knew about Soda's parents, though. He had shown her pictures and told her who they were.

"We wanted to see the sky," I told her, working fast for something I could tell her that left out all the ugly parts…and it wasn't fully a lie, either. When we lived in New York, I always told Dad how I wanted to see the sky when he told me stories about Oklahoma.

I gave Lily a cake batter covered spoon to lick. We were baking her birthday cake. Jace was asleep in the laundry basket, snuggled up with the warm, clean laundry. I needed to put that laundry away, but Lily was insistent about that cake, so I put the laundry basket near us on the kitchen floor.

My Aunt Dolly thought it was hilarious that I would tuck Jace into the laundry, so I could carry both him and the clothes at the same time. I thought it was efficient.

"No sky in Newyork?" Lily said 'New York' as all one word.

"There is a sky," I told Lily, "but the buildings are so tall there that you can't hardly see the sky."

"Bigger'n Daddy?" She asked, her eyes wide and her cheeks already stained with chocolate from the cake batter.

"Much, _much_ bigger than Daddy."

I showed her pictures of New York in one of Ponyboy's old thesauruses. I showed her a few pictures I had from New York, too, but I was careful not to include any with my mother or Dally.

We looked at them with Soda, since he hadn't seen most of them, either. While Jace babbled in Soda's lap, I held Lily in mine as we looked through them.

I had a lot of pictures that my mother had taken. Sometimes I wondered if she took so many, of the city and of both me and Dally, because she knew even then she wouldn't always be there.

There were pictures of the sky scrapers, sky writers—which Soda had never heard of, but it's when pilots use the exhaust from their planes to write messages in the sky—Central Park, the Ball dropping on New Year's Eve.

And there were pictures of me, too, but Lily thought they were of herself.

"That me?" She asked, pointing to a black and white photo of myself at three, just like Lily. It was snowing, and I guess Mama had taken me and Dally to play in the park. I was wearing a little beret on my head and a coat that I remembered matched my mom, bright red, even though it looked black in the photo.

"No, silly," Soda told her. Lily called everyone 'silly', and Soda liked to turn it back on her. "That's your Mama!"

Lily turned to look at Soda like he was crazy. "Mama not little."

"I used to be, though. Daddy used to be little, too." When we had shown Lily a picture of Soda as a baby, she insisted it was just a picture of Jace. They did look just alike. We had been comparing the picture to Jace, actually.

Lily shook her head, sending her blonde waves everywhere. "Mamas and daddies not little."

Soda shook his head at Lily. She was not going to budge that the girl in picture was herself and not me.

"Fine, Lily Bloom! It's you!"

That made her happy enough. Oh, Soda thought it was just hilarious that Lily was in love with New York even though it was a place I never wanted to go back to. I didn't bother to remind him Jace would probably be full of army questions one day.


	31. Chapter Thirty

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

 ** _-Sodapop-_**

I thought my friends drank a lot when we were kids. Now that we were actually old enough to get alcohol without having to use a fake ID, Steve drank the way you breathe air. Two-Bit had always been that way.

I should cut them a little slack, I guess. It's not like they were alcoholics, not by any rate. If you wanted to see an alcoholic, I'd have to go dig up old Dallas. I guess I just saw it that way because I still never touched a drop and my brothers weren't much for it either.

Still, it seemed like every time we were together, those two had bottles in their hands. We didn't get up to the crazy things we used to, at least Steve and me didn't now that we had kids. Two-Bit and Grace were still getting into everything. We had our own things, though, like Wednesday nights on my back porch.

Two-Bit lived in an apartment, so he didn't have a back porch, and Steve insisted being pregnant made Evie so crazy he could hardly stand it, so we would all sit in a row on our back porch. They would drink beer—sometimes Brooklyn 'graciously' let me have one of her root beers so I wouldn't feel left out.

Brookie had the windows open, because it was summer and hot even at night. I don't know how much she could hear us, what with all the commotion inside of Lily's motormouth and Jace playing with pots and pans on the kitchen floor, but we could hear them inside.

"Mama," Lily said, "Can I marry Daddy?"

"Nope," Brooklyn told her. Two-Bit was already snickering over his bottle. "You can't."

"Why not?" I could practically see Lily stomping her little foot. She always did that when she didn't get her way.

"I already did, sorry, Lily."

"Oh. No fair!" Lily's little voice sounded sad, but Brooklyn's had a laugh in it.

"Sorry, sister. Should've been born sooner."

Steve rolled his eyes at my wife's answer, but he was smiling. Two-Bit all but fell off the porch, he was losing it over what Brooklyn had said.

"Man, who thought it was a good idea for Brooklyn to be a mom? I was scared she wouldn't be funny anymore, but Lordy, I think her mouth's gotten worse since y'all had Jace and Lily."

"You don't know the half of it," I told Two-Bit. "I should start writing down the things she says."

The other morning, I had come into the bedroom to find Brooklyn sitting in bed with Jace in her lap. She had him sitting up, propped on her legs. Jace had a hold on Brookie's hands, and she was talking to him while he laughed and laughed at her.

"Why do you have these?" Brookie mumbled to him. She didn't realize I was in the room. She raised their hands and ran her finger over Jace's long, dark eyelashes. "You don't need these. Your dad doesn't need these. How do boys always get the good eyelashes?"

I had to put my hand over my mouth so _I_ wouldn't laugh. Jace gave me away, though. He saw me before Brooklyn did and started to wiggle and coo towards me.

Brooklyn had looked so serious, scolding him for his eyelashes. She blushed when she saw that I was in the room. "Oh, hey."

I did laugh then, and I took Jace from her lap to toss him in the air. "Lily still down for the count?"

I changed the subject for her, but she still gave me that sassy look of hers.

"The other day, when y'all brought Lily over to play, did you hear what she said? When Lily was calling her from Tommy's room while they were playing?" I laughed. I had heard her. Lily wasn't so much calling Brooklyn as she was yelling for her at the top of her lungs.

" _Don't yell at me, I made you_ ," Steve and me said at the same time. Two-Bit lost it all over again at that. From inside, I could hear Brooklyn telling Lily it was time for Jace to go to bed. His drumming on the pots and pans stopped, so that we could hear Lily talking to Brooklyn again.

I was sure that Lily was following Brooklyn around, like a little shadow, with Patches following Lily. All of them in a line, that's how they usually moved around the house.

"Can I marry Tommy?" Lily asked. She had seen a wedding on _I Love Lucy_. That little girl loved that show, and after watching it, she was stuck on the idea of getting married.

"Sure. Go ask your Uncle Steve and Daddy, I'll bet they'll like that idea."

Lily came barreling through the back door just a few seconds later. She climbed into Steve's lap, almost knocking the beer out of his hand. He just laughed and caught her before she could slide off his lap.

"I marry Tommy?" Lily asked sweetly, batting her eyelashes at Steve. Two-Bit sent me a look. That daughter of mine, she could lay it on thick. Even when I knew that's what she was doing, _I_ still always gave in. "Mama said."

She turned to me then. "Mama said, Daddy."

Lily considered whatever Brookie said to be law. "Mama said, huh? What is I said no?"

I was just teasing, and it made Lily laugh. "Nooo! Daddy can't tell Mama no!"

"Daaaaaaaang," Two-Bit drew out the word, I was sure, so he could change it from _damn_ to _dang_ so he wouldn't be cussing in front of Lily. "Do you get any say around here, man?"

"I guess not!"

Steve tickled Lily. "You wanna marry Tommy? Well, I guess someone has to keep that boy in line!"

And I was happy that my friends thought that it was all good times with my family. I don't mean things were bad—I had loved Brooklyn for a long time, and I loved her still. I loved our kids. We lived real comfortably, and didn't worry over money like we used to. Life was good.

It was me who wasn't always good.

Like the first day Jace crawled. He crawled kind of early, he wasn't quite six months old, but he wanted to _move_. He wanted to be able to follow Lily and Patches around.

Jace crawled on his belly for a while, not his hands and knees. It was a way of crawling that I knew well. Watching it took me back to being in a muggy jungle with Steve beside me, keeping my head low unless I wanted to be shot.

It was like I could feel the grass and leaves under my hands while I stood there watching Jace. My palms itched something awful. I felt like I did then, when the air was so heavy, like I couldn't breathe.

Everything sounded weird and far away. I could hear Lily talking to Brooklyn the next room over but it sounded like they were both underwater. The news on the television sounded way too loud.

Nothing was right.

And then, all of a sudden, Vietnam was gone when Brooklyn laid her hand on my arm. "Hey, are you okay?"

I was back in my living room. Lily was laughing and bribing Jace with a toy to get him to crawl to her. Patches was stretching in a beam of sunshine coming in through the window.

And my wife had her head tipped back to look at me, her eyebrows all knit together because she knew what had happened even if she couldn't understand because she hadn't been there.

I blew my breath out for a real long time. Then I pulled her into my arms and held her for I don't know how long while our kids played around us. I don't know if she could feel how hard my heart was beating, but I could. I thought it might fall right out of my chest.

* * *

Jace wanted to be an over-achiever when it came to 'baby milestones'. That's what Charlotte called them, anyway. She was always worrying over the twins, because Jace was a month younger than Sadie and Trace but he was doing stuff first.

"Oh, it's only because of Lily," Brookie would tell her, waving away her words when she would get so worried. "He's always watching her."

It was true, or at least I thought so. Jace really did watch Lily like a hawk, and he would try his best to copy whatever she was doing. On top of all that, Jace was stout and strong.

I wasn't surprised at all that he started walking when he was only nine months old.

One day, I came home to Brooklyn carrying a very grumpy Jace around.

"What's up with him?" I asked, reaching a hand out to see if he was warm with a fever. Brookie smiled, though.

"Oh, he's just mad at me because I've been carryin' him all day so he could save this for you." She set Jace down on his feet and he smiled real big. He just took off, walking as steady as if he had been doing it his whole life.

"Well, look at you!" I told him. "Oh, little man. Your Aunt Charlotte is gonna lose it."

At that point, Sadie and Trace had just began to crawl.

But there was something else about Jace. Where Lily was sweet, always laughing, and more than happy to do things like paint and play with Dulce and Anna Maria day in and day out, Jace was an adventurer. He was ornery. He liked to get into things.

It was nothing to find Jace covered head to toe in flour from a bag he decided to play in. Or to _not_ find him, because he figured out that he fit just right in the cabinet under the bathroom sink and decided to give me and his mom a scare.

Jace was just shy of a year old when he figured out how to open doors. The only thing was, we didn't realize he knew how to open doors until one beautiful summer day when Jace decided he should go outside.

"Lily Bloom, where's Bubba?" I asked Lily. She liked to call Jace 'Bubba'. Lily looked up from the dolls she was dressing and shrugged. Brooklyn walked into the kitchen from one of the bedrooms, where she had been putting away laundry while I cooked.

"It's quiet," she said. "Is Jace asleep?"

It was hardly ever quiet when Jace was awake. Then we heard the front door slam. I don't think I had ever seen Brooklyn turn so fast.

I turned the stove off. Brooklyn dropped the laundry basket she had in her hands. "Lily, stay inside, baby."

Lordy, but Brooklyn was fast. She beat me out the door, and I wasn't sure if it was because of that damn bum leg of mine or because Jace was her baby.

Jace was fast, too, though. Brooklyn jumped over the porch steps and ran across the yard. We had a fence and a gate, but we left it open until it got dark and I would lock it for the night. It wasn't left unlocked after that day.

I was frustrated because I couldn't keep up with Brooklyn. It was like the night Dally died and Brooklyn ran faster than all of us could have hoped to. Instead, I watched it all happen real slow, like time wasn't working right.

Thank God Brooklyn could run that fast. I think she would've broken any of Pony's track records that day. Jace was nearly to the street. Now, we lived on a residential street. We didn't get a lot of traffic except for when work let out in the evenings, which is of course when Jace decided to go on a little walk.

Brooklyn threw herself to her knees, sliding hard on the sidewalk to make up the last few feet between her and Jace. She just barely caught him by the back of his shirt before he got into the street.

If Brooklyn hadn't yanked Jace back like that and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into her chest, I have no doubt that he would have gotten ran over that day. When I got to them, Brooklyn was holding Jace tight and crying while he smiled and waved to me over her shoulder.

I picked them both up and wrapped my arm around them to walk them back into the house. You best believe I locked that damn gate behind us. The front door, too.

"Mama, you hurt," Lily said, reaching out to touch Brooklyn's bloody leg. Neither of us had even noticed. Brooklyn didn't even look down. She still had herself curled around Jace, who was wiggling to be let down.

"Mama's okay, honey," I told Lily. I scooped her up and took her to her room. "Could you do Daddy a favor and play in here for just a little bit?"

Then I untangled Jace from Brooklyn's arms and put him in his playpen, which he somehow hadn't figured out how to escape from. Yet. Two-Bit always called it 'baby jail', and now the name really fit.

"Hey," I said, taking Brooklyn's hands between my face. "He's okay. Jace is okay. Our baby's alright."

She was still crying, but all of it was already gone from Jace's mind. I was sure he didn't even understand that he had been in danger at all. Brooklyn was taking deep, shaky breaths to try to calm herself down.

"He could've died," Brooklyn whispered, looking over to Jace playing with his toys. Nothing like this had ever happened with Lily. The most troubling thing with her had been a cold and high fever she held onto for nearly two weeks when she was a baby.

"He's okay, though," I told her again. "Look at him, he's okay."

Still, Jace slept with us in our bed that night. Brooklyn didn't let go of him once. He was still curled up in her arms when I woke up the next morning.


	32. Chapter Thirty-One

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

In 1974, ten years after my brother and Johnny died, I held Ponyboy's book in my hands. I had traded Jace, who I had been holding while he slept, for the book. After the incident with Jace and the street, Soda thought I spoiled him something awful. Maybe I did, but he had done the same with Lily, so I reckoned it was a fair trade.

Besides, Lily was four by then, and a 'big girl' as she liked to remind us. She didn't need to be rocked to sleep like 'the baby' did, but she did still need Soda to put on a show of checking under her bed and in her closet for monsters.

"He's getting heavy," Pony said when he took Jace. Down the hall, I could hear Lily's wild giggles at Soda loudly warning any monsters who might be hiding that he would kick their butt if they tried to scare Lily. Butt is a really funny word when you're four, in case you're wondering.

"Oh, I know." I answered him without really thinking. I was taking in the book's smooth, dark cover and the drawing of seven boys on the front. Pony had drawn the cover, too. All of the boys faced away, so that you could only see their backs. Still, I knew who was who. I ran my finger over the one with white-blonde hair just like my Lily's first, knowing this one was Dallas.

Sodapop was just as easy to find, sandwiched between Darry and Pony toward the middle, his arms around both of their shoulders. The middle man.

"Nice name change," I told Ponyboy, running my finger next over the raised letters that claimed him as the author. P. M. Curtis.

"Yeah," he said, settling Jace into his lap. "They figured no one would take it serious if I used my full name."

That made me laugh, because how would anyone reading it not realize? The main character of the story and the author had the same last name, after all. I was flipping through the pages when Soda came into the room, stopping to kiss me before taking Jace from his brother.

"What you got there, Brookie?"

"Oh, just the first published work of this no-name author. Some guy called P. M. Curtis, ever heard of him?" If he had been holding anything other than our child, I think Soda would have dropped the load in his arms. I couldn't help but smile after him as he hurried Jace into his bed.

When I looked at Ponyboy, he had a nervous little smile on his own face. His leg was bouncing up and down and he had his hands clasped together. "Y'all are the first people I've shown. Except for Ellie. I hope you don't mind that."

The blush in his cheeks was adorable. He was still shy about Ellie, never mind that he hoped she would soon wear an engagement ring, after Pony got the money for selling his book. I wasn't supposed to know that, though. Soda had let it slip to me in his own excitement.

"Oh, it's old news to us anyhow," I told Pony, holding the book up for Soda to take as he walked by. Soda plopped down onto the couch the way he always had: too hard, so that it nearly knocked Ponyboy over when he did. Pony only laughed at his older brother, though, and leaned closer to look the book over with him.

"Man, Pony, we always knew you were going to be somethin'! Look at this! Brookie, look at it!" I laughed again. We were all three so happy and I guess to loud, because there came Lily from her bed, dragging her blanket behind her.

I didn't scold her for being out of bed when it was late. Instead, I lifted her into my lap and wrapped her up while she laid her head on my shoulder. Soda hadn't taken her braids out when he put her to bed, and already they were wild and falling out.

"What's funny, Mama?" I smoothed her pillow hair down.

"Oh, they're just happy, baby. Uncle Pony's book is done." That caught her attention, but it was still past Lily's bedtime and she was still tired. She titled her head back and looked at me with her big brown eyes all shining, but she yawned right after that.

"I can see tomorrow?" she asked sleepily. I glanced up to where my husband and his brother were sitting on our couch. Pony had his head resting on Soda's shoulder, and Soda was turning the book over and over in his hands and looking through the pages. He didn't stop talking about how he always knew it, that Ponyboy would use his brains to do something big.

"Yeah, you can see tomorrow, Lily Bloom. Wanna come to bed with me?" Lily nodded against my shoulder. Neither of those overgrown boys noticed when I stood up from Soda's recliner and carried Lily to our bedroom. I tucked her into our bed before changing into my pajamas, leaving Pony and Soda to their moment in our living room.

Ponyboy ended up having to get Lily her very own copy of the book, because she insisted on carrying it around with her while she played. Jace wasn't allowed to touch it, either.

"This is mine, not yours. Got it, Jace?" Lily had asked him, putting her big sister foot down. Jace had only smiled at her. Books didn't make noise or help him get into trouble, so he had no use for them yet.

Trouble might as well have been Jace's middle name. Lily's first word had been hi, but Jace chose a much more…colorful word to be his first, and it was his Uncle Steve's fault. And he said it during the party Darry threw for Ponyboy and his book. Lily, Jace, Tommy, Trace, and Sadie were everywhere, all underfoot as they played.

Steve dropped his beer bottle on the back porch, and when it shattered everywhere, Steve let out a loud, "Shit!"

I wouldn't have thought anything of it, but there came my sweet boy with his sippy cup in his hand. Jace laughed at Steve, looking up at him. Then, he dropped his sippy cup on purpose. With a huge smile on his little face, Jace's first word became the same Steve had just said.

Shit.

"Uh, Soda?" Steve said, when I turned to look at him. He whipped his head around, looking for his best friend. "Soda! Your wife is making that face at me where she looks like Dallas! Help!"

Steve actually flinched when I walked toward him, too. I really wanted to laugh, because I did think it was funny, but I knew I couldn't. If I laughed, then Jace would think it was okay to go around saying words like that. I only picked Jace up, even though Steve probably thought I was going to hit him.

Lily had seen it happen, watching with huge brown eyes. She tilted her head back to look at Steve and giggled. "You're gonna be in trouble, Uncle Steve."

Soda came from across the yard, where he had been watching Darry grill. "What's got your britches in a bunch?"

Before Steve could answer, Lily slipped her hand into Soda's. "Uncle Steve taught Bubba a bad word, Daddy."

"Your son said his first word," I told Soda, raising an eyebrow at Steve. "Wanna tell him what it was, Steven?"

I knew Soda would laugh, but I still rolled my eyes while I smoothed down Jace's blonde hair. He tried to smile at me, but I shook my head. Oh, I wanted to laugh, though.

"That's not a good word to say, Jace." His face fell so fast that it nearly broke my heart. That almost made me drop it. But I knew I couldn't. My not laughing at Jace's little potty mouth made him pout for the rest of the night, even when Trace and Tommy tried hard to get him to play.

"C'mon, Jace!" Tommy would say, tugging my little son by the arm. Trace and Sadie did beat Jace in talking. Lily liked to talk for Jace, because she was the only one who could understand his gibberish talk before real words came out.

"Yeah, Jace! Go!" Trace used both hands and pulled hard, but Jace wouldn't budge.

"He's dramatic," I heard Soda telling Two-Bit. "He gets it from his mother."

I stuck my tongue out at Soda over Jace's head and he winked at me. Jace wanted to be held most of the night, despite my scolding him. When he fell asleep, I added him to the huddle of children on Darry's couch. Jace lasted longer than the twins, but Lily and Tommy kept each other going for another hour before they couldn't take it.

Ponyboy was well over twenty-one by the time his book was published, but he still refused the 'celebratory' beers Two-Bit kept trying to press into his hands. He was high on nothing more than his happiness, and maybe the kisses Ellie kept pressing to his cheek.

"Look at your baby brother." I smiled when Soda wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled my back to his chest. He kissed my neck and I could feel the smile on his lips.

"I knew he would be something." We all knew it. Even Steve rooted for Ponyboy. It was amazing, what he had accomplished, but it made me sad at the same time. I knew Pony felt the same. He called it a catch-22.

Both of us wished Dally and Johnny were here to see it happen. But, that book never would have existed if they hadn't died. Life's funny that way.


	33. Chapter Thirty-Two

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

 ** _-Sodapop-_**

Our kids were not raised religious. Brooklyn was raised Catholic, and she still wore the necklace with a saint on it that once belonged to her mother and then Dallas. But she didn't follow anything Catholic.

I remembered going to church when my folks were alive. I hated sitting in the pews. Sometimes, me and Steve would look across the church at each other and pull faces to try to get the other to laugh. Pony would always elbow me to try to get me to stop, but I never did. Not until Darry would catch on and whack me before Dad could, anyway.

"Dulce's taking communion this Sunday," Dolly told us one night. Since Dolly and Esteban lived next door, we had dinner with them a whole lot. I liked when Esteban cooked, because he was always making something we had never had.

It was still too hot to be comfortable even though it was night, but that's Tulsa in July for you. Esteban made a cold kind of soup that was perfect for a night like tonight.

Brooklyn turned in her chair to look at Dulce, who was holding court over Anna Maria, Lily, and Jace. They were about to start a game of hide and go seek, but it looked like she had some rules to lay down first.

"Jace is too little to count, so he can't be it." I knew Jace wouldn't care about that. He thought all the fun came from hiding, anyway. He was too little—not even two yet, and besides that, always excited—to hide by himself, too, according to Dulce. "Someone's gonna have to hide with him."

"Lily!" Anna Maria said before anyone else could say anything. Lily pouted and looked at Anna Maria with the same look Brookie got sometimes. "What? He's your brother."

I knew why Lily wasn't excited to hide with Jace. He would get bored and start talking or trying to play, like he always did, and that would make them easy to find.

"No, we'll take turns, to make it fair." Dulce decided. "Lily, you count first, because you're the littlest, 'sides Jace."

"I hope they know Lily can only count to seven," I mumbled. Esteban laughed.

"And Anna Maria's going to count in Spanish to try to confuse your two, I guarantee it."

"She's old enough for Communion?" Brooklyn asked, watching her little cousin run to hide in the cabinet under the sink. Her long, gold-blonde hair got caught in the cabinet door so that she had to open it. Dulce barely got it closed again before Lily got to seven.

"You took it when you were six," Dolly said. "Before leaving New York. Remember? They only allowed it because you were so good with your Bible verses."

"Yeah." Brooklyn's hand went to her necklace. She always touched it when she thought about her mother or Dallas. "My mom wanted me to do it with Dally if we could."

"Most kids do it around eight or nine," Dolly filled me in. "It was a big deal little miss over here got to do it at six."

"Dally told me the Communion wine was grape juice, so I took a really big drink of it and threw up later."

I could tell Brooklyn was distracted, but I don't think Dolly or Esteban did. When her mind went somewhere else, Brookie's eyes always turned greener. It looked like she was watching the game of hide and seek, but that was wrong. I figured she was thinking about that Communion thing Dolly was talking about.

"You'll come, won't you?" Dolly's questions snapped Brooklyn out of her head.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Of course. I wouldn't be a good godmother if I didn't, right? Where is it?"

Just then, Jace ran from his hiding place—wherever that had been—and hurled himself into my lap. He made himself fit underneath my shirt. His little face was hot on my skin.

"Great hiding place, there, J." I helped him and pulled my shirt down over him all the way. Brooklyn rolled her eyes and tucked Jace's leg up underneath for him.

"It's Parish of Christ the King Catholic Church." Esteban told us, only because just then Anna Maria came pouting to Dolly about Jace giving away her hiding place when he ran.

"Don't tell me it's early Mass, because this one over here thinks the day starts at noon." Brooklyn pointed to the lump Jace had made out of himself under my shirt. Lily came down the hall laughing and skipping. She came to me, but ignored Jace under my shirt.

"Daddy, where's Dulce?" She whispered to me, cupping my ear with her hand.

"Under the kitchen sink," I whispered back to her. Lily smiled and gave me a thumbs up.

"Sorry, but it's the eight o'clock Mass," Dolly said, smoothing Anna Maria's dark hair. "This Sunday."

It was Thursday night when Dolly told us about it. Brooklyn sent a look at the lump that was Jace in my lap. I knew what she was thinking. Jace lived in hand-me-downs from Tommy, and Steve and Evie certainly weren't church-going folks.

Lily was girly, like her mother. She had plenty of dresses she could wear to church. But we would have to find something for Jace.

Somehow she found something, though. On Sunday morning, Brooklyn dressed Jace while he was still asleep. She sat him up on pillows in our bed to tame his hair.

"You're not going to wake him?" I asked, but she only shrugged.

"Believe me, he'll wake up if there's music." Lily was excited to dress up. She twirled herself dizzy in the living room watching her skirt float up around her.

"You'll knock your brains out if you're not careful, Lily Bloom." I picked her up before she could topple into the edge of the coffee table.

Lily giggled. "No, Daddy. Brains stay here."

She tapped her little blonde head and I wished my daughter was right about that. But I knew better.

* * *

It made sense to me, after sitting through that whole church service just to get to the two seconds that was about Dulce, why Brookie didn't like what she had grown up in. The church we went to as kids, my brothers and me, that preacher talked a lot about the good things. Blessings, miracles.

There was talk of miracles and blessings in this preaching, too, but most of it was about sin. What sin was, what happened if you sinned. I think it was mostly for all those kids about to take Communion.

I had no place in that church, or any church. I had killed my fair share of men, and killing is pretty high up on the sins list. But there I sat with Lily in my lap.

When they started talking about how killing yourself was just as big of a sin as killing others, Brooklyn dipped her head low over Jace's. He still hadn't woken up. To anyone else, I am sure it just looked like Brookie was kissing his head. She was really hiding her face, though, thinking of her mother. And Dallas, I was sure—in a way, I guess he did the same thing.

From the long list of sins, it seemed to me most everyone on earth would be burning in hell together.

Still, Brooklyn didn't lift her head until all of the sin talk was over. Lily played with the bottom of her dress through the whole church service. I figured she would be bored through it, and she was.

The only part either of them perked up for was when Dulce and the other kids came out.

"It's really wine?" I whispered to Brooklyn. Lily was standing up on my lap on her tiptoes, trying to see over everyone's heads. She liked the white dress Dulce wore, and the flowers Dolly had braided into her hair.

"Yeah, it's wine."

"And they give it to kids?"

"It's not illegal if it's religious. Also, I think they water it down? Maybe."

Dolly reached over Esteban to shush us for talking in church. Brooklyn just rolled her eyes and settled Jace on her lap. I didn't know how that kid was able to sleep through all the music and preaching. He didn't wake up until we walked in the door at home.

By that time, it was time for Lily's afternoon nap. Brooklyn handed Jace off to me and said she was going to nap with Lily. Jace was entirely wide awake, or I would have taken him and napped with them in our bed. Something about that long church service was exhausting. Plus, we were meant to go back to Dolly and Esteban's for supper.

I didn't trust Jace enough to take my eyes off him. He had quite a track record for a one-year-old. So, I made him tag along with me to our bedroom. Lily was already almost asleep, and Brookie was tucking her into my side of the bed.

"Hey," I said, catching my wife's hand when she turned toward away from the bed. That church service had taken a toll on her, I could see it on her face.

I pulled her into a hug and held her there…that is, until Jace started to jump on the bed.

"Stop that, little heathen," Brooklyn plucked him off the bed while he giggled. When she went to hand him to me, I kissed her over the top of his head.

"You okay?" She tried to smile, but it didn't really reach her eyes.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Church is fun, huh?"

"Super fun. We've got a few years until Anna Maria's turn, at least."


	34. Chapter Thirty-Three

_All the Pieces of You_

* * *

Ponyboy's book actually came out months before the ten-year anniversary of Dally and Johnny's deaths. That, of course, was in October. Pony insisted it was special in a way. Ten years was a long time.

In a way, I guess he was right. He must have been, or maybe it was his fancy way of talking sometimes, but either way, Pony got us all at the graveyard that day.

"Y'all abandon your kids?" Two-Bit asked when me and Soda got there. He had beaten us. I noticed Grace wasn't there, but I wasn't surprised. She never knew Johnny, and she wasn't ever that close to Dally. She hated to be anywhere she didn't think she belonged.

"No, you hood, they're with my aunt." I shivered despite my denim jacket. It was nearly sundown, and it was getting chilly outside. I leaned into Soda to try to get warm.

Even though Two-Bit was just trying to be a brat, it was weird for me to be there without Lily or Jace. I usually always had at least one or the other with me. It was hard for me to say when the last time was that we had been out without them.

But Soda and I both agreed. Four and two was simply too little to know all these sad things.

"Did you know graveyards are alphabetical? We're gonna have to walk forever thanks to you dang Winstons."

Soda wrapped one arm around me and used the other to give Two-Bit a friendly shove. "Hey, now. She's been a Curtis for, like…"

Two-Bit laughed when Soda's voice trailed off and he counted. I knew Soda was counting, because his lips were moving. "You better answer right, man, or we'll be here for a funeral instead of a memorial."

"Niiiine years?" Soda drew out the words like he wasn't quite sure, but he had gotten it right.

"Good boy," I told him. "I reckon you can live another day."

When Steve and Evie got there, I sent Two-Bit a look. "Not gonna ask where their child is?"

He only shrugged and pointed to Evie's stomach, which was rounding out with their second child. I told her this one had better be the girl she wanted, because I wasn't up for a third kid.

"They were responsible enough to bring at least one of theirs."

"You didn't even bother to bring your sister!" I told Two-Bit. Karen came walking up with Pony and Ellie. She was the only one who hadn't been there all those years ago.

"Are you two ever gonna stop fighting?" Steve asked, shaking his head. I was nearly twenty-six, and Two-Bit was twenty-eight, but if I was honest, we definitely still argued like we were kids.

"Oh, didn't you know?" Karen asked, rolling her eyes at her brother. "It's how he keeps Dally's 'legacy' alive, according to him."

That made me roll my eyes, too. I never even argued with Dallas all that much.

"Where's Dare?" Soda asked, wrapping his other arm around me when I still hadn't stopped shivering.

"He's comin'," Pony promised. "He just said he had to help Charlotte give the twins baths first."

Ponyboy's whole idea is that we should meet here and pay respects. He had flowers in his hand for Johnny, all of them yellow. It reminded me of Johnny's last words for Pony. Stay gold.

Two-Bit had a case of beer for my brother. Dally never would have appreciated flowers the way Johnny would, and we knew that.

"Someone's liable to steal all those," Darry said when he came up, clapping Two-Bit on the shoulder. None of us had heard him coming. His big voice made me jump a little in Soda's arms, which, of course, only made him laugh.

"Yeah, well, maybe Dally's ghost can kick their asses if they try." Two-Bit and Steve never were could about watching their mouths now that we were all older. Lucky for Steve and his safety, Jace's vocabulary quickly went from shit to mama, dada, and 'Wiwy'—just like Lily used to say her own name. She still wanted to talk for him all the time, but I was trying to get her to stop that.

We started at Johnny's grave, because Cade is a lot higher up in the alphabet than Winston, as Two-Bit once again reminded us. I know Ellie must have read the book. We all had, even though we didn't need to. Those days were burned in all of our memories.

"What was he like?" Ellie asked quietly. The setting sun made her skin glow a warm brownish-gold. We had all been as quiet as the graves until she asked.

"He was Pony's best friend, but after, Pony was stuck with the likes of me. Sorry for any corruption I caused." Two-Bit spoke first. He never was scared to talk.

"Johnnycake was way tougher than he ever thought he was." It had been years since any of us had heard the screaming down the block, what with Johnny and his old man both dead and his mom in jail for his dad's murder. We all remembered it, though. You could see the disgust still on Steve's face at the thought of Johnny's parents, even then.

"And he was nicer than he ever had a reason to be." Soda added. It was true, too. Anyone else getting beat and yelled at all the time would have been angry, like Steve, but Johnny never was.

"He wanted to save those kids without even thinking about it," Pony said softly. "He didn't even hesitate. Johnny jumped right into that fire like it wouldn't burn him."

I smiled when Ellie reached over and took Pony's hand. She hadn't been there then, but he needed her here now. I knew that Ponyboy hadn't been to the cemetery more than a handful of times since Dally and Johnny were buried. It was hard on him.

I knew it would be harder to say nice things about my brother. In his own words, Dally was 'never nice'. That wasn't entirely true. Dally was nice to Johnny, anyway, and to me—as nice as any older brother can be to his little sister, I reckon.

"See? This is a long walk from C to W." Two-Bit was still complaining. Soda gave him a goodhearted shove that nearly sent him over a gravestone.

"Hey, don't push me back! I only have one leg!"

"Yeah, and whose fault is that? Shouldn't step on landmines, Soda."

Darry shook his head at them. I swear none of them were going to grow up. Two-Bit didn't actually push Soda, probably only because he was still hanging on to me.

"I didn't know you were a war strategist, Two-Bit." Darry said. "Pepsi-Cola could've used that advice years ago."

Okay, maybe Darry would never really grow up either.

"Two-Bit, he didn't even like that beer," Steve said when Two-Bit placed the case there. I had no idea what kind of beer Dally had drank. Except for that bad time with moonshine, I had never paid attention to alcohol.

"Hey, I have this life philosophy to never buy beer I don't like. And the kind of beer Dally liked tasted like throw up."

"When all the beer is gone tomorrow, it's not gonna be a homeless guy, it's gonna be this fool." Karen hooked a thumb at her brother and then ducked behind Evie when he lazily tried to swat her. "You can't hit pregnant ladies!"

"Y'all are all a mess," Evie said around a yawn. I certainly didn't miss the constant sleepiness of being pregnant.

We had held it together for Johnny, but we were falling apart for Dallas. He probably would have knocked all of our heads together. Only Ponyboy and Ellie were truly serious, tucked away slightly away from the roughhousing.

"Would I have liked him?" I heard Ellie ask.

"No," I said, laughing, at the same time Ponyboy had said yes.

"You don't have to lie for him just because he's dead, Pony," I told him, laughing. That made him blush. I could barely see it in his cheeks because the sun was nearly down. Even though Soda had his arm around my waist still, he wasn't even paying attention to our conversation.

"I don't think you would've liked him," I told Ellie. "Not a lot of people could. But I think he would have liked you."

And I meant that. I really did think Dallas would have liked Ellie and the way she walked tall, shoulders back and head high, despite the ugly words people still tended to say about her. I thought he would like what she did for Pony, too, even if Dallas never would have said it. Ellie brought something out in Ponyboy. He always talked more when she was around, with a bigger smile on his face than when she was gone. Dally would have said she was a tuff broad.

"That would've been high praise," Pony whispered to Ellie. "Dally hardly liked anything other than horse racin' and fightin'."

I kissed my fingertips and then leaned over Soda's arm to press them to Dally's headstone. Soda thought I was falling, I guess, because his arm tightened around me to pull him closer to his chest. It reminded me, for a second, of that night when he stopped me from running to Dally in that hail of bullets.

But now, ten years later, I wasn't crying. Instead, I giggled as Soda pulled me to him and kissed my cheek. Our friends were laughing around us in the dark, like we were all teenagers again.

I twisted myself around and wrapped my own arms around Soda's middle. I rested my head over his heart, and closed my eyes, listening to its beat and the happy chatter all around me.

* * *

 **A/N:** In no way do I intend this to chapter to be offensive. It's just how I think, over the course of ten years, they would honor their friends. Death, I don't think, needs to necessarily be a sad thing forever. I also don't think Dallas would have wanted them sitting around crying...I don't know. It's hard to put into words. What I'm trying to say is, I envisioned this scene as a group of friends who were bonded by something tragic, but have grown to a place where they are comfortable enough in their loss to be happy to visit their lost love ones. If you don't see it that way, I'm sorry...


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